Canadian Down Under

Friday, August 05, 2005

It's definitely not the accent

Contrary to earlier thoughts, it's definitely not my accent that's afforded me such wonderful customer service (yes, that's sarcasm). How do I know this? Well in recent weeks I've discovered I apparently no longer have an accent - a Canadian accent that is.

Before we go any further - I just gotta tell you - I find this very distressing.


A few weeks ago I was at a friends' for dinner and met a bunch of his friends for the first time. I thought the evening was going pretty well - they were all pretty funny and we were having a few drinks and laughs - there were a bunch of nationalities there so I didn't feel like odd man out for a change - until I got up to get myself a drink and from across the room, one of my friend's friend (the cute one) asked me where I was from.

How tired am I of that question????????

But before I could answer the friend then asked me where all my accents were from and how many did I have? (Huh??)

So I answered: "one for each personality".

The consensus of the party goers was that although I don't quite sounds Australian (this being the verdict of the Australians there....) I certainly don't sound Canadian. Apparently I either sound a little Irish or Dutch.

What?

Then the last week I was in one of the local malls (actually getting my makeup done by the 'international makeup artist' at Bobbi Brown - how girlie is that???) and since I was there for a while, I got to talking to him. After about 20 minutes or so he asked me if I was from the States (a common question) to which I replied, no I was from Canada. His next question kind of surprised me though - he asked how long I'd been here - had I been here since I was a teenager.

"Nope. 2 1/2 years"

"Wow - but your accent is hardly detectable! I could have sworn you'd been here at least 10 years."

So as of last week, I still had a faint accent - albeit an American one.

Then Monday it all changed. A couple of things happened - I actually asked someone "How you going?" (instead of "How you doing?"), used the word 'reckon' in a sentence and got mistaken for an Australian.

I still sound Canadian to me, but I'm worried that when I get home I won't sound Canadian to my Canadian friends. And if that happens - I'll never hear the end of it...

1 Comments:

  • I just think that Aussie's don't know what an accent is. In 8 months in Australia I was asked if I was british, irish, scottish, American, Canadian, Scandanavian and South African. I must have that strange thing known as a variable accent... weird.

    By Blogger Mitch, at 8:36 AM  

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