# 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:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/61 "2013-10-26T05:34:28Z")
Does killing a former accent count? I grew up in the PacNorthWest and mostly Alaska, but my dad was from Missouri, so obviously growing up with him I had some slight Midwestern accent stuff going on in my way of speaking. Once I reached permanent workaday world age (20ish), I started eradicating sayings and ways of saying certain words. Now I have an “Alaskan accent” such as it is. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2013, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/62 "2013-12-07T09:28:33Z")
What’s awesome is being in a roomful of people who can provide a colorful accent on demand – there is no one ‘British accent’ but my students will cheerfully render posh rhetoric into whatever local patois is requested. So, thanks, student from Dorset who gave a terrific ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen’ speech in West Country PigBen Josh for me, and a nod of gratitude to the student from Ukraine who ‘acted out’ a couple letters from Pliny the Younger. I’m teaching a module on Greek comedy in the spring and damned right we’ll be acting out scenes from _Lysistrata_ with accents a go go. I can soften my native accent to something vaguely Estuary, but many times any more just talk in my hacksaw-through-cheap-veneer Delawarean accent. When my students go for American accents, though, I usually say, ‘Right, um…don’t. Just, don’t.’ ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/63 "2013-12-07T14:42:58Z")
> [@cinnamon815](#): > > 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 My question regarding the bolded parts is: convincing to whom? If you’re fooling Joe Random-American-or-at-Least-Not-English, that’s not the same as fooling someone who is English and has (one of the many) English accent(s). A follow up question is: how do y’all who’ve said their fake accent is convincing actually _know_ it is? If your proof is that no one calls you out on your fake accent or asks about it dubiously … Hate to break it to you, but that ain’t proof. It’s quite possible to notice a bullshit fake accent but not say anything or let on you know because that [del]could[/del]would be a bit aggressive and dickish. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/64 "2013-12-07T17:18:31Z")
I’ve never _affected_ an accent, but I do tend to pick up the accent of the person I’m talking to pretty much unconsciously; I guess I’m sensitive to such things because of my linguistic and theatrical experience. I remember talking once to an Irish guy (a friend of a friend) in a pub and unconsciously parroting his accent. I think he was pretty POed until he realized I wasn’t doing it deliberately. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806/65 "2013-12-07T17:22:45Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > A follow up question is: how do y’all who’ve said their fake accent is convincing actually _know_ it is? I once did Posh English (think Patrick Stewart) for a Shakespeare production in front of audiences filled with Brits. Their reaction when they heard me speak normally was invariably shock: “What, you’re _American_?!?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-fake-an-accent-regularly/639806.md?page=3)