Is this boy crazy for speaking with a fake accent...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

or am I just a bitch?

(All right. I have been working up to this for a month. The fact that it still bugs me six months after the fact has convinced me it needs telling. Anyone who gets through this whole post is a doll)

Have known a boy for two years. He is an actor. We took a trip together half a year ago to London and-- lo and behold-- as soon as we stepped off the plane he began to speak with a British accent. Not half bad, actually quite good (classic training and all that), but he is from upstate New York, born and raised. He went to theatre school in England for two years, but that’s besides the point (It was five years ago, and I’ve lived there for a few years off and on myself. I’ll say ‘flat’ and ‘mobile’ but that’s about it).

We split up for a bit to see friends and when I spoke to him on the phone he was still speaking with it. I asked him to cut it out. Repeatedly. We met up about a week later and still he spoke with the accent, not to mention a charming snobbery not even found in the locals (cooing over clothes at Selfridge’s, complaining about tourists). When I complained yet again about how creepy and weird he was being he finally stopped trying to joke his way out of it and said something to the effect of “You know, I did live here. This is how I spoke for years” and maybe mumbled something about being an actor. He even spoke like that when he and I were alone and not with friends (who weren’t much help as they had either never met him before-- my friends-- or only knew him when he was last in the UK and speaking like that-- his friends).

The bottom line is, it wan’t some elaborate practical joke (though he and I had even kidded, before the trip, about him doing a horrid cockney accent during the trip).

So it’s been months and he sort of apologized in a verrry vague way after we got back, perhaps not aware that I wasn’t just weirded out by the accent but offended that he continued putting on airs after I’d told him it made me uncomfortable. Mostly, I’ve avoided the topic completely and just tried to forget it. It’s the only way.

But recently I saw a bit of film in which he’s speaking with the accent and I found myself getting nauseous and uncomfortable again. Is something wrong with me? Am I overreacting? The friends I’ve mentioned this to said he sounds crazy (some know him and have heard him do accents in plays or while fooling around), but he is quite normal in every other way and hasn’t done anything odd since. We’re also very forthcoming about everything else. Just not this. I was really hoping to forget about it completely and get over it. I don’t want to dredge it up with him again.

I guess I just needed to vent, and maybe ask if anything like this has happened to anyone here (with a companion who was over the age of eight, because the only other people I know who’ve picked up an accent so fast have all been small children).

And to top it all off, there is an episode of Undeclared a bit like this and we both loved it (pre-London). God I hope he’s not a Doper.

2

I had an ex that insisted on speaking with a (terrible) brogue. When we met he actually told me he had been born in Ireland and come to the States when he was still an infant. Surprised the hell out of me when I met Bronx-accented mother. Thing is, even after the (poorly-contructed) ruse was up, he still insisted on putting this show on in public. The guy thought every day was RenFaire. Just being known as this guy’s other half made me feel like an ass.

A mutual friend called him “The Insta-Celt, just add low self-esteem”. I think the problem with my ex and your friend here is a need to feel accepted, be the center of attention, etc. He had a lot of other issues that I think stemmed from his low self-esteem, but they aren’t really germane to the OP.

3

Affecting a foreign accent is an easy way to make oneself stand out without going to all the trouble of developing an actual personality. Unfortunately, it only makes one seem “different” to strangers, who think you’re foreign; acquaintances, who know damn well where you’re from, will place you somewhere on a spectrum between “pathetic attention-whore” and “too stupid to realize that ‘foreign’ does not equal ‘better.’”

Xenophiles. Ick.

4

The boy seems odd.

Your experiencing any more than mild irritation over his quirk seems odd.

I dunno.

5

I hate it when people develop self-conscious insta-accents. When I worked in Britain I was actually determined to keep my native accent, though eventually it just sounded stubborn to keep saying “to-may-to” and I started saying “to-mah-to” and a few other things like that. But shortly after I moved back to the States that was done.

What your friend is doing sounds weird and fake. If he had lived in Britain for decades and really couldn’t help himself, okay, maybe. But not after just a couple years, especially if that was a while ago.

6

I pick up accents pretty fast.

The positive is that it’s helpful for learning languages.

The negative, that a few times I’ve had to apologize to people who thought I was making fun of them. Many britishers probably hear your pal and wonder where the hell does he think he goes with that lousy fake accent… but they’re too polite (and have known him for too short a time) to actually say it out loud.

7

I pick up accents pretty fast too. Maybe it’s a subconscious desire to fit in, or an inferiority complex which makes me think my accent doesn’t sound as cool, but mostly I think it’s a challenge to see if I can mimic it well enough to pass as a native.

In short, it’s not something worth caring about.

8

I used to know a gal who spoke with the most gawd awful fake American accent ever. no idea why … she claimed she was from - erm where was Fargo set? - but she didn’t sound like she was from there (“oh yah”), she just sounded like she was faking a generic American accent. It wasn’t even a case of oh she’s lived in Ireland for so long she’s got a hybrid accent. I was always hoping to meet another member of her family to see what they spoke like…

9

Fargo was set in Minnesota, but I’ve never heard a Minnesotan who spoke with such an exaggerated accent as the people in the movie. 'Course most of the Minnesotans I’ve known lived near the Twin Cities–Minneapolis and St. Paul . . . not up in the Iron Range or someplace more likely to have a strong accent.

I don’t think this guy is crazy, perhaps because I have a friend who spent a summer at summer camp speaking with a fake accent. Between the accent, the nickname (too many counselors with his real first name, so he got a nickname. I usually called him by the nickname, because too many people in our circle of friends had the same first name) and the delightful innocence of youth, he convinced a number of people that he was from some foreign place. He was silly at times, but basically a good guy.

Your boy’s motives and actions may be entirely different. But I can’t see speaking with a fake accent making him crazy or even just indicating that he’s crazy.

I also agree with tomndebb, whether this guy is crazy or not, you seem to be over reacting to me.

10

Yep. Overreacting. Getting naseous seeing him on film is a bit weird.

11

Along these lines, do I recall correctly that Mr. Riverdance (Michael Flatley, right?) is a native-born American who affects an Irish accent?

I always found such things to be a pathetic bid for attention. But overall, it’s harmless. Annoying but harmless…

Of all the things in the world to get upset about, this is pretty low on the list.

12

Exactly.

13

'ecky thump lad, dis tha nort unnerstand what t’lad is spekkin

14

I’m going with a lot of other people on this that you’re overreacting. Not much per say, it’s your right to think he’s nuts. Heck, a lot of people think I"M nuts… but that beside the point. My father in law is from Louisana. Whenever we go down there to visit for a week I end up picking up a cajun accent. No idea why, and I’m mostly not even concious of it. It usually takes me a couple days back in rural Oklahoma to break this and it drives my wife crazy. My father in law thinks it’s funny as all get out though. So I can relate to this guy, kinda. It’s not just him that has this problem. Hope this helps.

‘snipe out’

15

When I was in college I knew a guy who had made a game of faking various accents. It had become such an ingrained habit for him that he really couldn’t shut it off. He said he spent one entire job interview apologizing to the southern-accented interviewer: “I’m not making fun of you or anything - it’s an unconscious habit.”

As for the OP’s story - my opinion is that you should talk to him to try to figure out why he does it, and maybe from that you can figure out why it creeps you out so much. My theory is that you’re sensing an underlying un-trustworthiness to his character. What else is he faking, if he can’t stop faking this?

16

I thought Fargo was set in Fargo. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched, though.

17

Just fake a Swedish accent whenever you’re around him and see if he picks up on it.

I’m another one who picks up other people’s accents fairly easily, even after just watching a TV show or movie with accented characters. Usually just American accents though. I’m always afraid that I’m going to have to go to New Jersey for some reason and piss someone off and be in for a clobbering.

(Oh wait, that’s dumb. Nobody ever has any reason to go to New Jersey.)

18

:dubious: You’re one to talk, Pittsburgh.

:wink:

19

It was set in North Dakota. It was filmed in Minnesota. Or so says a North Dakotan friend of mine, who recognized pretty much every exterior shot in the movie.

20

I’m another person who tends to unconsciously start talking like the people I’m around. Every time I spend two weeks in Houston, I return home with a Texan accent.