Have you ever known someone who has a fake accent??

[Scar]

Have you ever known someone who has a fake accent??

I have known this chicky for a while, always thought she was from the UK. Then I find out from a mutual friend that they grew up together in Ohio and the girl lived in the UK for only 6 years, out of the 25-30 of which she has been alive. Yet she sports the thick accent and talks about "you Americans" all the time. WTF?!?!

I had another similar experience in High School. I had a friend who claimed to live in the UK for a great deal of time (years). He told us tales of his insane life and all the crazy drugs he'd done and the parties, celebs, etc. Then I find out from some classmates who'd been enrolled in his previous school that he'd been away from school for only 3 or 6 months one year when his mother brought him over there.

What is the American preoccupation with the UK? Why do all the alternative folks wanna go there/ be there/ be from there? Is it considered all punk rock or something?? Cause my UK friends online want to come HERE!!!!

Aaaaahahhh!H!H!HH!

[malcolm]

sometimes thats all it takes to catch an accent. i have a chameleon effect in which i will subliminaly adapt my voice to accents i hear over a period of time simply because i am used to hearing that tone or annunciation of the word or dialect. and usually old accents i've had will come out in emotions im in-like if im in a good mood may sound more nelly or even a bit euro becaus my boss is from scotland and i've been listening to him alot. if m iritated i may sound like im from jersey,boston,new york , if im feeling flirty or sexy, my voice will sound somewhat smooth and velvety-like a cat,and if im pissed off i may sound like im from texas or down south (cus im originally a memphian) it's not a intentional thing for me and sometimes i dont even realilze im doing it until someone points it out-usualy by saying "are you mocking me?"

i wouldnt let it get to you,scar. if they're doing it on urpose then they're a dck or maybe they wanna just add a little mystery to themselves either way-let them live their charade until they get busted by someone else.

[Donald Rilea]

Like Mr. Malcolm, I can imitate an accent of someone who's around me, more often not because I want to mock them, but because I like the accent and the way it sounds.

I often will throw in elements of various sorts of British, Canadian and Australian pronounciation and idioms(slang and such)into my speech, as I will various bits of American dialects, depending on the person am addressing and the context I'm in, and because of the way that the word or words are pronounced in those manners.

Have had three encounters, back in my cafe days, with people who used false accents, two of them being Rastafari wanna-bes from Ohio, and one fella, a few years later, who claimed to be from Ireland, and had, to these American ears, a reasonably good Irish accent, but who also turned out to be a Yank.

As for the fascination that many Yanks have with the UK, well, my guesses are that, one, it's close enough in language and culture to be familiar, yet different enough to have at least a touch of the exotically fascinating, and two, maybe a kind of post-colonial(long since post-colonial, that is)cultural hang-over that kinda prizes everything British over that of say, Swedish, Danish, Austrian, or one of them other European(on my lawn, and you'd better stop it, Boy!!!)types, or over the home-grown stuff, which just might seem a bit too pedestrian and blah for some tastes.

Anyway, those are my guesses.

Anyone else game to try???

[malcolm]

i think there was a war we had against them a long time ago when we were still considered an english territory........nah! tat wouldnt hav anything to do with our fascination with the united kingdom now would it?

[Mindgames]

What is the American preoccupation with the UK? Why do all the alternative folks wanna go there/ be there/ be from there? Is it considered all punk rock or something?? Cause my UK friends online want to come HERE!!!!

Probably because it's the only foreign accent Americans are regularly exposed to that uses the same intonational structure. The other options tend to be too similar (like Australian) or not associated with 'cool' (like the way movies always use South African accents on bad guys but never on heroes). It's amusing though as I've only heard one or two "britfakes" that are even in the right ballpark - nobody seems to be able to do a local dialect so there's this strange thing we call "perceived English", which only exists on screen but stands in for anyone from east of Maine. A London (not Danny-Kaye-Cockney) accent isn't that hard to cover, but the further north you go the worse it gets - I've never met an American actor who could say "hello" in Geordie even with a voice coach in the room.

The other way round has changed recently - American accents were 'cool' in Europe and the UK in the last century but with the politics of recent years they're less so. The same problem applies though - a Brit faking an accent never seems to get the idea of 'region', and most attempts at NYC stray off into comedy Irish. To my ear it works best when it's only gentle (Hugh Laurie in House, Louise Lombard in CSI).

The bigger question is why does everyone SING with an American accent even if they don't try to?

[Donald Rilea]

i think there was a war we had against them a long time ago when we were still considered an english territory........nah! tat wouldnt hav anything to do with our fascination with the united kingdom now would it?

Yeah, and no.

Sure, after the Revolution,and until the First and Second World War eras of the 20th Century,there was a great deal of animosity here towards Britain, not only because of the Revolution, as well as the War of 1812 and lotsa little territorial disputes between the US and UK along the way, but also because of the influx of immigrant groups, like the Irish, many of whose members had a well-justified bone to pick with the Brits.

But, at the same time, a lot of the people who made up our governing classes had roots in the British Isles, and, at least in some areas, there were, and, I think, still are at least some strong cultural connections between the US and UK even to-day.

This extends even to when one American mentions the British Royal Family and its latest doings to another, the phrase that's generally used to describe 'em is "the Royal Family", and NOT "the British Royal Family", as opposed to the Dutch, Belgian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, or even Monagesque(them folks from Monaco)royal families, which don't even begin to get even a fraction of the media play in this country that the Brit Royals do.

Colonial ties, even when violently broken, as in our case with the British, tend to remain for quite a long while, and can be seen in the ways that an independent nation will often organise itself.

Lotsa reasons for that, but I'll not go into them now, as have written enough on it for the moment.

[Toe Cutter]

Have you ever known someone who has a fake accent??

I have known this chicky for a while, always thought she was from the UK. Then I find out from a mutual friend that they grew up together in Ohio and the girl lived in the UK for only 6 years, our of the 25-30 of which she has been alive. Yet she sports the thick accent and talks about "you Americans" all the time. WTF?!?!

Aaaaahahhh!H!H!HH!

Scar, I think that bitch is a fucking phony.

The whole "you Americans" thing from a girl who grew up in Ohio reeks of some sore of bullshit elitism. Like living in the UK for 6 years made her better than everybody else.

[VoltaireBlue]

shit, I've only been in the south for a year, and sometimes an accent slips out of my mouth.... so do words like "reckon", and "fixin' ".... scary....
I think it's normal to pick up an accent after six years, but to say all that "you americans" bullshit is lame.

[One Eyed Cat]

The bigger question is why does everyone SING with an American accent even if they don't try to?

I've always wondered the same. I will usually pick up only more pronounced nasal intonations from vocalists across the pond. One exception: I would be amazed to hear an American Vocalist able to sing in a falsetto register (with the richness) of a vocalist like Martyn Jacques of Tiger Lillies.

JT

[Scar]

I think my thread may have accidentally sounded angry, which was not the intent. I am not mad at this chicky for having a big fake accent, I just think it is strange. I also think if it was her inclination to pick up on accents around her that she's be talking like the rest of us American's by now. And it's not slight by the way, it is super heavy. I can totally imagine Voltaire squaking out "fixin" and not even being phased by it but this particular case of accent fraud-ery is quite extreme. That being said people are fake in all sorts of ways I was not born with blue and red hair, and I choose to have physical characteristics that I was not born with, and I guess it is not that much different, but it DID strike me as odd, so I thought I'd see if you all had had similar experiences, and I do believe you have :-)

[malcolm]

didnt think you were.

[Wickedanima]

I used to fake accents constantly. Mostly for self-amusement tho.

I do tend to parrot whatever accent I've been around a long time. I was English for a good 6 months after I spent some time in London, and I forced myself to stop, because the poor Mountain Southern Folk would just stare at me blankly. Now after 6 years in the Mountains, an outsider would think me Southern.

I love acccent fakers. We have one young man like that around here... He gets massive testicular credit for faking his accent around people who went to school with him, and well know he didn't sound like that before. ^_^ Poor dears.

[evilstonermonkey]

im with malcolm, i sort of subliminally absorb expressions and speech patterns. like, if i watch a lot of father ted then ill say feck for the next few weeks, if i watch a lot of firefly ill catch myself saying things like gorram or shiny. i pick up accents as well, although not as obviously. half the time i dont even notice it for days.

oh, and i like to randomly make voices and accents up every now and then, just as i go. i can never intentionally repeat them, and i dont fully plan what theyre going to be in the first place, so it can be wierd at times

[Lady Alias]

Boy, oh boy. Honestly, I don't know what goes on with my speech. It'll come out with shit that isn't even a real accent. There will even be specific words every few months that I could say before but can't currently say without a weird take on it, but I'll be fine a few months later. However, for the ones that do exist, I "absorb", as been previously said, immediately and unknowingly, and will drive me crazy and is embarrassing. As far as influences...for example, I work with a Russian chick, and a month later I started spurting this weird shit, and I thought it was another weird language deformity until I heard her speak again and it hit me. It also doesn't help that the only channel my mother watches is BBC.

[malcolm]

im with malcolm, i sort of subliminally absorb expressions and speech patterns. like, if i watch a lot of father ted then ill say feck for the next few weeks, if i watch a lot of firefly ill catch myself saying things like gorram or shiny. i pick up accents as well, although not as obviously. half the time i dont even notice it for days.

oh, and i like to randomly make voices and accents up every now and then, just as i go. i can never intentionally repeat them, and i dont fully plan what theyre going to be in the first place, so it can be wierd at times

oh! i loooooooooooooove father ted! ive only sen a few episodes but its so badass. fuc, i wish i had bbc on m tv. all e get are monty python and red green (canadian) on pbs out here...they usd to show red dwarf mr. bean (including the cartoon) and coupling but they suck. and you wanna talk about mimmicking shows? you should see me after watching party monster-

[Bikerpunk]

I'm another one whose accent changes, given the situation. Having spent considerable time in many places, if I speak to someone whose accent is from a place I've lived in for any length of time, my natural speech will RAPIDLY drift into that pattern.

And I will talk about my ACTUAL heritage, thanks. I have the passport and the christening certificate to prove I were Lancy bred, like.

I won't describe myself as American until I have the citizenship card in question.

My accent goes all over the goddamn map when drunk.

[Pull~My~Hair]

kinda...I work with a guy who's a white guy from southern oregon and he has a japanese- accent, but it's just from working at Benihana for too long

[Black Spiral Dancer]

The further north you go the worse it gets - I've never met an American actor who could say "hello" in Geordie even with a voice coach in the room.

For those you waning to try, it's pronounced "Hell-oW" (as if you've hit your toe on something)

For better examples, look for Geordie Star Wars on YouTube or Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

[keiko]

I myself have a nasty adaptation habit of acquiring accents and speech patterns I've been around for more than a few hours. Made my trip to England an exercise in trying to hold on to my "American accent". But it never lasts longer than a few hours at most. I have a default really faint southern belle from my many many years this far south but it's only really noticeable when emotions run high.

When I was in school all those years ago there was this one guy who affected an accent all the time trying to make himself sound cool but ti was so bad that it just served to make him that much more lame. Where as after an all night "Who-athon" (Doctor who for the unfamiliar) I showed up at school on day with such a convincing accent that I'm still teased about it. But then it comes in handy as an aspiring actress...

~K

[Exquisite]

I moved from England when I was 7, and acquired a Canadian accent with 6 months. The issue with this is that I tend to pick up on speech patterns quite quickly and without thinking mimic them. So if you pronounce a word differently in front of me I kinda pick it up and use it.

When I do go back home I end up quite English quite quickly unless I have someone Canadian around to ground me. Its an interesting phenomena and my uncle who studies languages is always most interested to talk to me throughout my stay to judge my accent changing.

[OliX]

I have gift to mimic other people "to the bone" too
Sometimes too much that I almost lose my self in the person I'm mimicing. Most important is that it makes people laugh

Although they are generally not aware of it, many people send and receive non-verbal signals all the time. These signals may indicate what they are truly feeling. The technique of 'reading' people is used frequently. For example, the idea of mirroring body language to put people at ease is commonly used in interviews. It sets the person being interviewed at ease. Mirroring the body language of someone else indicates that they are understood.

[Bikerpunk]

For those you waning to try, it's pronounced "Hell-oW" (as if you've hit your toe on something)

For better examples, look for Geordie Star Wars on YouTube or Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

I have to admit, the bit about "so that me faaarts can blaa roond when am gannin oot, like" was classic (the Geordie Jeans sketch you posted)

[Black Spiral Dancer]

There's also a Geordie Jumpers sketch which is also very funny.

I personally blame the American Fascination with English accents on the movies. Watch any movies with a really bad guy and most of them will have an English accent.

[Bikerpunk]

There's also a Geordie Jumpers sketch which is also very funny.

I personally blame the American Fascination with English accents on the movies. Watch any movies with a really bad guy and most of them will have an English accent.

Correction: they have a David Niven accent.

I've actually fucked up someone here who said "a British accent" (my question "which one?" His reply " a British accent")

with

(West Country) "I yerd cuckoo on't timbertop d'o'er day, I yerd un gah cuckoo! cuckoo? I sed missus, do you yurr t'cuckoo? Er nivver answered oi." (Lancs) "Tha'rt welcome, tha bonny brid, but shoont a coom jist when tha did toimes r bad. We short o pobbies or owr Joe, but that of course tha didn't know did ta lad?" (Geordie) "Howay, our Sid, y'lookin canny dappa th'neet, owt on the pull?"
(Cockney) "Nah, nah, nah, nah straight up, ee wants sooorin aaaht eeee does."

Dude was like "I have NO IDEA what you just fucking said."

[Black Spiral Dancer]

Well, I meant the generic English accent, be it David Niven or Alan Rickman. Even though Vincent Price was American, people would think he had an English accent, but were unable to pin down where it's from.

What we're talking about is the classically trained English accent.

[Bikerpunk]

Vinny was American?

[Tigerlily]

I've always said that we as people emulate those that we're around the most...but acting is different than talking. Its okay to pretend, but to turn it into more of a lie is definitely wrong. I knew this girl who had a seriously thick southern accent and I never thought twice about it because we lived in Georgia. Hungout with the girl for 2 yrs and when I finally met her parents she talked without any kind of accent around them and I found out they were all from Pennsylvania lol.

[inox]

This is straying off topic a bit, but I find it odd when people pronounce the 'Meg' in 'Megan' as 'May', but still pronounce 'Meg' so that it rhymes with 'peg'.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

Vinny was American?

The Vincent Price entry on IMdb It tells you his birthday and birthplace.

[xxxnecklacexxx]

.

oh, and i like to randomly make voices and accents up every now and then, just as i go. i can never intentionally repeat them, and i dont fully plan what theyre going to be in the first place, so it can be wierd at times

Mmmmhmm me too, and usually Im with my kids driving to far away places, you know they ask..are we there yet and the Shrek from hell comes out, then I go with it and for some reason its a strange accent and they all laugh..passes the time. I have a few friends that when we get together we end up faking the brit and crackin each other up with our outlandish verbalisms and outrageous actions... we tend to scare people away from us.....hmmm dont know why that is really?
And if Im around someone, due to my multiple languages as a child I can pick up the accents and pronounce the words pretty well. Just dont ask me to speak german or Arabic anymore I lost all of that years ago from lack of use.

[Head Wreck]

there are lots of British accents, and once you go into any hilly areas, say Scotland and Wales the accents tend to be unique to the town.

there's a very noticeable difference between my accent and everyone else i work with that even my lisp cant mangle.

When i stayed over in Ypsilanti with friends 2 years ago i noticed that after a while they'd stopped cutting syllables short and started rolling their R's and I failed to pick up any hint of their accent. nor would i attempt to, as theirs nothing so odd looking as someone from my area trying to do any American accent.

which brings me back to the original point. I have known a few people try and claim their from somewhere else but could not get over their local accent. they just ended up making a complete tit of themselves at the bar as they still not only sounded welsh, but failed to incorporate anything other than local slang terms which are alien to people outside the area (Turk for example, a term used to describe someone from my area due to the sudden influx of Turkish immigrants waaay before i was born).

i tend to think that lies, even little white lies will allways be aired to the public at some point

[grebo]

most australian artists who live overseas get a wanky euro accent (kylie minogue)
lots of australian cuntry and western singers sing with an american accent, that used to happen with hiphop dudes years ago, but if you rhymed with a american accent now youd be laughed at as a try hard knob gangsta sellout beyatch

[Bikerpunk]

most australian artists who live overseas get a wanky euro accent (kylie minogue)
lots of australian cuntry and western singers sing with an american accent, that used to happen with hiphop dudes years ago, but if you rhymed with a american accent now youd be laughed at as a try hard knob gangsta sellout beyatch

Chopper Read wasn't that bad....

[evilstonermonkey]

most australian artists who live overseas get a wanky euro accent (kylie minogue)
lots of australian cuntry and western singers sing with an american accent, that used to happen with hiphop dudes years ago, but if you rhymed with a american accent now youd be laughed at as a try hard knob gangsta sellout beyatch

ive noticed that too, a lot of singers sing 'american style' - and not just australia, other countries too! ESPECIALLY AMERICAN ONES!! i think its probably because the american entertainment (music, television, movies etc) has taken over in a lot of areas, and so the up-and-comings are (to a greater or lesser degree) basing what they do on what they admire and are inspired by. thankfully more and more artists are breaking away from that.

[blackienig]

That stupid blond bitch thats on TV all the time, whats her name..... Britney

[Bikerpunk]

That stupid blond bitch thats on TV all the time, whats her name..... Britney

She's trying to follow in Madge's footsteps.

Though Madge was never photographed wandering around in a daze with her skirts hiked so high you can tell she's bleeding.... cause she is....

[Velvet-Tongue]

Man, this thread made me laugh. Maybe its human nature to naturally pick up the local dialogue/accent of an area? As far as the UK thing I guess people just like to feel different.

When I hung out with lots of spanish people I'd start to roll my r's etc. Books too, after reading a 40k series where people would say words like "smilegirl (for hookers) Ninker for a punk, Slag/Fraggin etc for the f word. I just started saying random crazy words in normal conversation. The internet and its language has fucked me up completely. "HAY THAR GUYS" in real life...etc.

[Head Wreck]

oh god i HATE leet-speak.

and text speak. especially as being dyslexic i need to have the word spelled properly or else it doesn't compute properly (i get by on American-English though, as ironically most of the dyslexia learning material that was about as i was a sprog was American produced).

[Jennyjammy]

ive noticed that too, a lot of singers sing 'american style' - and not just australia, other countries too! ESPECIALLY AMERICAN ONES!! i think its probably because the american entertainment (music, television, movies etc) has taken over in a lot of areas, and so the up-and-comings are (to a greater or lesser degree) basing what they do on what they admire and are inspired by. thankfully more and more artists are breaking away from that.

It's because of your diaphram....most countries who speak english have the same inflections, which makes the singing sound the same....it's not an american accent...but people who have harsher accents, like country, or the country in the U.K. have different inflections, it's a fundamental law you learn from a voice soach

[Jennyjammy]

Have you ever known someone who has a fake accent??

I have known this chicky for a while, always thought she was from the UK. Then I find out from a mutual friend that they grew up together in Ohio and the girl lived in the UK for only 6 years, out of the 25-30 of which she has been alive. Yet she sports the thick accent and talks about "you Americans" all the time. WTF?!?!

I had another similar experience in High School. I had a friend who claimed to live in the UK for a great deal of time (years). He told us tales of his insane life and all the crazy drugs he'd done and the parties, celebs, etc. Then I find out from some classmates who'd been enrolled in his previous school that he'd been away from school for only 3 or 6 months one year when his mother brought him over there.

What is the American preoccupation with the UK? Why do all the alternative folks wanna go there/ be there/ be from there? Is it considered all punk rock or something?? Cause my UK friends online want to come HERE!!!!

Aaaaahahhh!H!H!HH!

BULLSHIT, they are faking...it's a poseur thing to do, to pick up an accent, so you just imitate everone around you, if you worked around, criminals, would you be saying shank, no, you embody what you want to be