I need to stop speaking in accents.

[RealUnimportant]

I can see many uses, especially if they're being idiots on the phone. However I'd just tell them the person they spoke to had finished for the day, but informed me of their needs before they left...

[Sakka]

I work approx 30-35km away from where I was born and have lived over 90% of my life. I have stopped counting the number of people who ask me where I'm from, how long have I been in the country, etc. ... Apparently I don't sound Canadian?

[chikenlady]

For some reason, I have a Canadian accent.
.

We have an accent? :

[Andara Bledin]

We have an accent? :

Yes. Yes you do. And depending on which part of Canada you're from, they're slightly different.

^-.-^

[EricKei]

We have an accent? :

Well...as compared to, say, the bland, unaccented dialect that is thought of as "standard (US) American speech", yeah ^_^

I can DO accents fairly well, but I've never morphed from one to another except when I switch gears into random-rambling mode. Basically, I sound more like I actually AM from New Awwwlinz, and the intellectual level of my discourse tends to drop a level or so. >_<

[Merriweather]

I slip back into major Southern accent if I'm near anything remotely southern - a conversation with relatives, watching Gone With the Wind, even talking about my childhood, heck, even okra for dinner can do it, lol.

My daughter, on the other hand, slips into a British accent. She was born in CA, lived in VA til jr. hi, then we moved to Wales. By the time she'd been in local schools a year, she had the accent (I refer to it as British, cause it wasn't really Welsh, the area we lived in wasn't predominantly Welsh speaking, and a lot of English had settled there, so her friends accents were very mixed from very English to Welsh and all shades in between). Her accent was evidently quite convincing, as we once went on a coach trip to Germany (one of those tour group things, you go by coach (bus), stay in a hotel, and they take you out to all sorts of destinations & activities) - mind you, this wasn't from the base, but a local company, we were the only Americans there. For those who haven't been to the UK, the British tend to be fairly reserved - they don't ask personal questions like Americans do, and what we'd think nothing of asking a perfect stranger, they'd consider too personal to ask even a new friend. Anyway, after a few days, where we'd been having lots of fun, and various conversations with the others, a few of them finally came up to us very apologetic looking, and said "please don't think us rude, we know it's none of our business, but it's just driving us crazy, can we ask you something?" So we said, sure, go ahead. They said, well, that's your daughter, right? We said yes, she was. They then asked, and you two are Americans, right? We agreed. So they then looked at us in the most baffled voice ever and said "But she's English!!!"

[chikenlady]

Yes. Yes you do. And depending on which part of Canada you're from, they're slightly different.

^-.-^

Just the newfies sound different and the french

[EricKei]

So they then looked at us in the most baffled voice ever and said "But she's English!!!"

My Dad (an American from the Big Easy) once had a gentleman from Bonn thinking that he was a native German. If only he'd taught me to speak it that well >_<

[Sleepwalker]

I had/have a bit of speech impairment, and speaking in an 'accent' can help prevent a stutter or garbled words.

[Food Lady]

I had a coworker who would purposely switch to an English accent every so often. It delighted some customers, weirded others out.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I had/have a bit of speech impairment, and speaking in an 'accent' can help prevent a stutter or garbled words.

Good to know. My daughter stutters. She's in therapy for it, and it's helping. But she has good and bad days. Fortunately, it's not severe. I bet the affected accent works the same way as her "stretchy speech" technique, which is simply drawing out words a little as you speak. Makes you concentrate on forming the words individually. Singing helps, too, so I imagine speaking in an affected accent would serve the same purpose. Interesting. Glad to have that idea in the arsenal.

[Pixilated]

Just the newfies sound different and the french

I was born and raised in a border Canadian city and I've had at least two people say to me, "Hey, you have an American accent!"

When you consider the 'border' in question was Ontario/Michigan, I'm not sure what "accent" I've picked up ... but it's there.

I had a Newfoundland roommate one time who spoke standard English with just a bit of Newfie lilt ... but when she wanted to, she could switch to an accent and dialect so thick that none of us could understand more than every second or third word.

[Krysalis]

I seemed to have acquired a Southern drawl mixed New England. I like in Southern California. I've never lived outside the Mojave Desert in all my life.

I did have a speech impediment growing up, so maybe that has something to do with it, but when you hear someone drawl, "Idear," or "TAHdis," I wouldn't blame anyone for laughing.

Still slip into the impediment, too. It's on R's, W's and L's, and there's occasions where I'll say "Wight way to way wubens."

Yeah...