# Does anyone else fake an accent regularly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 4, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806 "2012-11-04T00:27:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/41 "2012-11-05T13:18:48Z")
It is decidedly so. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/42 "2012-11-05T15:25:30Z")
I used to prank the drive-up order with my Cheech & Chong accent. That exaggerated Hispanic accent always woke them up on the late shift. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/43 "2012-11-05T15:33:19Z")
Not an accent, but a whole language. I’m Dutch, and the only time I speak/write English is on this board. But I read English books all the time, and 80% of the TV I watch is in English. So for me, English is the language of…poetry, interesting living. I discuss things that matter in English; Dutch is for work and for grocery lists. So when I speak Dutch, I interject a lot of English words. I also do that because of habit; sometimes the English word is neare to the tip of my tongue then the Dutch word. Using English words when you’re Dutch is frowned upon in the Netherlands; it is considered pretentious. Kind of like using a British or Bostonian accent if you’'re American, right? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/44 "2012-11-05T15:39:24Z")
I do not have an accent. Non-Southerners have do. ---
**Author:** ![MagicEightBall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MagicEightBall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEightBall)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/45 "2012-11-05T16:13:16Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > That you think faking an accent is akin to wearing makeup is very telling about the enticing power of playing at being something you’re not. > > Make up doesn’t tell a lie. It might make my eyes look bigger, or my cheeks rosier, but it does not misrepresent who I am in such a way that I need tell a lie to explain. > > Hey, if you’re so ‘quirky’ you think it’s alright to lie to everyone you meet, perpetrate an enormous fraud, because you’re afraid for people to know you’re from the South, go for it. More power to you. > > Personally, I’d rather be occasionally misjudged by those who mistakenly believe people with southern accents are rubes, that correctly revealed as a poser fraud with a fake accent. But it takes all kinds to make a world. > (Most of the examples given, by people in this thread, are not related to what you are doing, even tangentially. You are outright lying to people, to cover a fake accent. How you spin that into anything other than you are a complete fraud, need only meet your criteria, no one else’s. And clearly, it’s okay with you.) > > Everything has consequences however. Everything has a cost. I’d be afraid, were I you. Interesting that you only mention the make-up example and none of the others I gave…can’t argue that getting plastic surgery and denying it (no, I never had a facelift!) or changing our personalities based on who we’re with is akin to changing one’s accent? Didn’t mention people that purposefully try to lose their accents either? Also, an enormous fraud? You’re being very melodramatic. Just because I choose to speak in a different way than I did for most of my life, doesn’t mean that anything I say in that voice is a lie or that I’m pretending to be someone else. Yes, I say I have relatives from Boston, but that’s not a lie that hurts anybody. Then again, what if I just said, “Nope. I’m from the South,” and didn’t lie about “why” I have the accent? Then it’s okay? _shrugs_ Well, maybe I will start saying that and simply leave people confused, we’ll see. I find it interesting also that you’re the only one in the thread to have such a passionate (and quite frankly, rude and excessively judgmental) reaction to it. But ah, well. You’re right. It takes all kinds to make up this world. Even narrow-minded people like you, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/46 "2012-11-05T16:15:44Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I used to prank the drive-up order with my Cheech & Chong accent. That exaggerated Hispanic accent always woke them up on the late shift. And then you get to the pickup window to face an entire crew of Hispanics, and don’t dare eat the food. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/47 "2012-11-05T16:23:22Z")
Yeah, that wasn’t an issue when I was doing it 25 years ago. No Hispanics in my community. Some do talk like Cheech. I’ve heard them at the Student Union where I work. Cheech’s costume and voice were authentic for the late sixties. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/48 "2012-11-05T17:53:09Z")
> [@](#): > > can’t argue that getting plastic surgery and denying it (no, I never had a facelift!) or changing our personalities based on who we’re with is akin to changing one’s accent? No need to make any such a silly argument, denying you had plastic surgery _is_ the very same thing. A lie, and a fraud, by definition. If by ‘changing our personalities’ you mean lying than, yeah, also the same thing. And persons trying to lose an accent they actually have, is entirely different than pretending you’re someone you’re not. > [@](#): > > doesn’t mean that anything I say in that voice is a lie or that I’m pretending to be someone else. Yes, I say I have relatives from Boston, but that’s not a lie that hurts anybody. Um, yeah, it does mean you’re a fraud. And you _are_ pretending to be someone else, by the way. Oh, and lie is a lie. Whether it hurts anyone or not, it’s still a lie. Told in perpetration of a fraud - you! > [@](#): > > Then again, what if I just said, “Nope. I’m from the South,” and didn’t lie about “why” I have the accent? Then it’s okay? _shrugs_ Well, maybe I will start saying that and simply leave people confused, we’ll see. But you don’t do that, do you? Nope. And there is a reason you don’t. Because it reveals you to be a hipster with a put on accent. Or, faker, liar, or fraud. You can call it melodramatic, but get a dictionary and start looking up words. That’s what you’re doing, by your own admission. And now you want a message board to stroke you and say it’s all okay and doesn’t make you a fraud at all. Not so. > [@](#): > > Even narrow-minded people like you If calling someone, with a fake accent and lie to tell, a liar and a fraud makes, me tres narrow minded and judgmental I’m happy to be so. I’d be willing to bet you’re not fooling nearly as many people who you think. I’d wager a really goodly number of people are too gob smacked by the audacity of the fakery it takes, to pull such a thing, that they say nothing, but howl with laughter at you behind your back. How can you imagine anyone takes you seriously? Playing these kinds of games usually leads to being seriously deluded. Judging by your lame ass defense of this, you’re already there. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/49 "2012-11-05T18:45:15Z")
For some reason, what the OP is doing strikes me as hilarious. I have no idea how well you pull off your fake accent, but I’m sure your causing endless amusement for some people you interact with. And ultimately, I don’t think it’s a big deal, hugely detrimental or makes you a bad person. I believe it makes you a little weird in some way, just like all of us. As long as your not hurting anyone with it, like by being the Professional Voice of Boston, then I say knock yourself out. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/50 "2012-11-05T19:00:02Z")
Yarr! Does pirate talk count, matey? ---
**Author:** ![lizlizliz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/db5fbb/32.png) [@lizlizliz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizlizliz)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/51 "2012-11-05T19:15:47Z")
I’ve often thought about this. My parents are from North Jersey and have noticeably different speaking patterns and vowels from the people in the area they currently live in and where I was raised (Central PA). When we visit family that lives in New Jersey, I often find my vowels and speaking patterns shifting that way. It’s close to a New York accent, but less so, if that makes any sense. What pisses me off is that I have an acquaintance with no ties to the New York/New Jersey area who in the past few years has attempted to affect that accent. I know my frustration is completely irrational and what she’s doing is harmless but sometimes I want to yell, “SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU DON’T ACTUALLY TALK LIKE THAT.” Like I said, it’s irrational. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/52 "2012-11-05T20:07:13Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > My husband is very anti social and doesn’t like to speak to strangers. When he does have to speak to them, I notice he feigns an English accent…not a regular one, but an obviously put-on one…like an English Sir. He also uses this accent with me when we are having “deep” philosophical discussions. He’s been doing it for years, but you know I never really thought about it or discussed it until now. > > He is a bit crazy though. I affect something English-ish on occasion. It’s clearly not an authentic accent, but it’s also clearly not a deliberate put on, i.e. I’m not trying to give myself an accent, it just slightly alters my normal accent. It mostly happens when I’m getting sheepish or nervous. I’ve never been called out on it, but I have gotten worried that people think I’m doing it deliberately. I try to stop it from happening, but often I don’t notice until after the fact. My accent also shifts in unpredictable ways when I start talking reallyfast. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/53 "2012-11-05T20:29:53Z")
I am basically Great Plains brains-up-my-nose in everyday speech, but when I lived in metro New York, I sometimes code-switched, becoming a little bit more adenoidal and taking the steady loping cadence up to a slow machine gun rattle (make sense?). What scared me more was starting to sound more Canadian after only a week in Vancouver. That I was only half aware of. In general, I’m a good mimic and can do about a dozen accents for pleasure. Lately, Thomas Peterffy (the anti-“socialist” tv ad guy) is teaching me how to sound Hungarian. They speak deliberately and carefully, I think because Magyar has a lot of finely distinguished sounds. ---
**Author:** ![cinnamon815](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/54ee81/32.png) [@cinnamon815](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cinnamon815)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/54 "2013-10-19T21:32:44Z")
if ---
**Author:** ![cinnamon815](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/54ee81/32.png) [@cinnamon815](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cinnamon815)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/55 "2013-10-19T21:34:44Z")
See, I know it’s been a loonnngg time since this forum was posted, but I actually do speak “fake” English accent regularly. It started for first for acting and I kept doing it to the point where it’s actually my voice now. It’s Very convincing and I dont get ALOT of weird looks about it but because it is very odd to dramatically change the way you talk, a few people raise brows. It’s convincing and technically the way I talk now but i definitely was not born talking like this and it definitely is permanent unless im around intermediate family. (Then its half on half off). I don’t think it is normal even though I do it as well, but as long as your happy doing it, it shouldn’t matter. Usually when someone dramatically changes something about themselves, something dramatic happened to them or its to replace an insecurity… and accents are just enjoyable. ---
**Author:** ![SerafinaPekala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@SerafinaPekala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SerafinaPekala)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/56 "2013-10-19T23:10:49Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > I do a bang on rendition of my grandfather’s heavy Hungarian accent whenever a stranger asks for help and I don’t wanna. When someone comes to the door, or Im out working in the yard, that I dont want to speak to, I feign a Spanish accent, “Lady, she no home” to get rid of them and walk away. They prob think Im just crazy and dont want to deal with it. My 3 y/o nephew started talking in a Boston accent suddenly and no one could figure it out. He was raised in the Midwest (USA) and had never heard a Boston accent AFAIK. It didnt last long (most of the year) and then he reverted to the usual Midwestern non-accent. Why would a 3 y/o even think of faking it and do such a good job? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/57 "2013-10-23T04:08:13Z")
I don’t fake an accent… …unless my daughter tells me to. She thought it’d be “the perfect situation” if I started a new semester (with students who’d never seen me before) by trotting out my “Bad Serbo-Croat/Roma/Ruskie” accent. So I did, and it was a blast. Think Borat Badenov with an attitude: “You Amedikans, you are SO soft… theese semester, you weel work. Like oxes. Een old country, is school being like gulag.” I scared my audience, and there were relieved laughs when I morphed from Soviet Hardass to Regular Midwest Softie. So I was about to try it again with my next class, until I recognized a couple of students I knew. So I scrapped the accent… and am I glad. The first student to introduce herself was so shy I could barely hear her: _“My name is… Marusya…? And… I am from Moscow…?”_ It would’ve been tricky to explain that I wasn’t making fun of her people. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/58 "2013-10-25T00:38:57Z")
I used to work on the phone a lot, an operator and a call center insurance agent, and I would commonly affect a southern accent. It was easier to talk that way for 8-12 hours a day than to use my midwestern accent and since most callers were southern they were nicer to me when I reflected their accent. I’ll still do it if I’m talking to a stranger on the phone and I want them to think I’m sweet/nice whatever so they will do something for me. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/59 "2013-10-26T02:01:46Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > No need to make any such a silly argument, denying you had plastic surgery _is_ the very same thing. A lie, and a fraud, by definition. If by ‘changing our personalities’ you mean lying than, yeah, also the same thing. > > And persons trying to lose an accent they actually have, is entirely different than pretending you’re someone you’re not. > > Um, yeah, it does mean you’re a fraud. And you _are_ pretending to be someone else, by the way. Oh, and lie is a lie. Whether it hurts anyone or not, it’s still a lie. Told in perpetration of a fraud - you! > > But you don’t do that, do you? Nope. And there is a reason you don’t. Because it reveals you to be a hipster with a put on accent. Or, faker, liar, or fraud. > > You can call it melodramatic, but get a dictionary and start looking up words. That’s what you’re doing, by your own admission. And now you want a message board to stroke you and say it’s all okay and doesn’t make you a fraud at all. Not so. > > If calling someone, with a fake accent and lie to tell, a liar and a fraud makes, me tres narrow minded and judgmental I’m happy to be so. > > I’d be willing to bet you’re not fooling nearly as many people who you think. I’d wager a really goodly number of people are too gob smacked by the audacity of the fakery it takes, to pull such a thing, that they say nothing, but howl with laughter at you behind your back. How can you imagine anyone takes you seriously? > > Playing these kinds of games usually leads to being seriously deluded. Judging by your lame ass defense of this, you’re already there. First off, are you under the impression that most people with plastic surgery go around telling people about it? Second, the irrationally angry post that no one else agrees with while in an otherwise happy thread is _my_ thing, and I don’t need someone else filling in while I’m trying to deal with my anger and cut down. I mean, thanks for thinking about me, I guess, but we really don’t need a replacement. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/60 "2013-10-26T05:15:47Z")
A friend and I once spent a week talking in a bad Arnold/Hans & Frans German-ish accent. It was summer, and we were on vacation, so yah it pumped us up. Our parents probably thought we were annoying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806.md?page=4)