On Accents

Back to the expat life thing:

As I was cruising the blogosphere, I caught sight of a post that defended Madonna's rather dodgy British accent as forgivable. After all, she lives in the UK. So it is only natural that her speech takes on a plummy tone. (This came from a non-expat blog, by the way.)

BZZT! Sorry. Thanks for playing, enjoy your parting gifts.

I don't know the whys and wherefores of Madge's shapeshifting vowels. (Yes, they call her Madge here. The name makes me picture Madonna soaking her fingers, pre-manicure, in a bowl of rather viscous green dishwashing liquid. Which just a) reveals my age and b) tells you I watched way too much daytime television as a child.)

Perhaps Madonna has a much better ear than me - she is a singer, after all, attuned (one hopes) to tones and lilts. But after more than two years here - almost three, with some extended stops back in the US that first year - my accent is just as SoCal as ever.

And I know Americans who have lived here for ten years, twenty years. They still sound like they could walk the streets of Anytown, USA and not get fawned over for speaking like someone on Masterpiece Theater.

It takes WORK to pick up a British accent.

Okay, maybe it would easier to broaden my A's if I were surrounded by no one but Brits and watched nothing but British telly. At home I speak with my American hubby and, I must confess, we watch mostly US series. And at work I speak with my American bosses as well as my British staff.

But still. WORK. In my opinion. Especially because British regional differences are far more pronounced than those in America, and it would be hard to pick up even a "BBC English" accent as the telly and the streets outside are filled with numerous ways of pronouncing words.

I do slip into a British inflection rather easily - my voice goes down, instead of up, when asking a question these days. I've added "quite" and "rather" to my speech patterns. And I will admit to saying "to-MAH-to" and "IN-a-vah-tive" instead of "to-MAY-to" and "IN-o-vay-tive." (I draw the line at al-u-MIN-i-mun, however. It's a-LOO-mi-num. 'Nuff said.)

But an accent? Bahth instead of bath on a regular basis? Nope. Ain't happening. And it makes my husband and friends crack up whenever I try, I fail so miserably.

I know one or two American expats who slip into a British accent. Unfortunately, we tend to think of them as rather, well, pretentious and affected.

(Of course, if you are an American expat who has a British accent, I'm not talking about YOU ;-))