# Most unintelligible english accent **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 20, 2007, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692 "2007-12-20T11:36:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/41 "2007-12-21T02:38:08Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Aha, the man who smacked the shit out of a terrorist _who was on fire_. Top bloke. I’m amazed the [CNN report](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krtRxSpR5f0&feature=related) doesn’t have subtitles. “He’s a big boy but he’s nae fer bein’ subdued.” [/QUOTE] Especially as the clip begins “I was having a fag”…typical hard-working Scotsman… ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/42 "2007-12-21T02:50:00Z")
I had no problems when I was in Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Ayr, but when I got up to Inverness I found people very hard to understand. It could have been Icelandic. I find heavy accents from Ghana and Nigeria harder to understand than Caribbean accents. I was born in New Jersey and cast no stones. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/43 "2007-12-21T02:55:04Z")
[QUOTE=River Hippie] If we’re including Americans speaking incomprehensible English I nominate Snoop from the HBO series “The Wire”. I just watched season 4 and I’ll be damned if I understood a word she said. Even when I backed up, turned up the volume and tried again. [/QUOTE] Yup, I came in here to say some urban black people in America. They have their own dialect. Shit, go into Southeast DC and listen to some of those younger black people talk. Good luck understanding a lot of what they say. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/44 "2007-12-21T03:07:23Z")
None of those clips were too tough but I did have to pay attention. Maybe I’ve been living internationally for so long that I’ve heard a lot of these accents before. the guy going on about the terrorists sounds just like a colleague. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/45 "2007-12-21T03:10:37Z")
[QUOTE=Cluricaun] Whatever Brad Pitt was on about in the movie Snatch. I’ve had the occaison to meet some Travellers here in the states and whatever they hell they’re saying it most certainly isn’t in English. [/QUOTE] The funny part about that for me is that my husband and I watched the film, and turned and looked at each other in astonishment - the Pikey accent was a Newfie accent! We had no problem understanding him at all. The accent I am currently having the hardest time with is a South African accent. The vowels and whatever are pinched in the wrong places, and it just throws me. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/46 "2007-12-21T07:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=Mangosteen] Any good YouTube videos displaying incomprehensible English? [/QUOTE] Here is a classic sketch from [Rab C Nesbitt](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k7VoFiagfs) . I would always turn on the sub-titles when watching this comedy series. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/47 "2007-12-21T13:01:57Z")
When the British film _The Acid House_ was distributed in the US, it mercifully included English subtitles. That was some incomprehensibleness there. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/48 "2007-12-21T13:17:58Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] Yup, I came in here to say some urban black people in America. They have their own dialect. Shit, go into Southeast DC and listen to some of those younger black people talk. Good luck understanding a lot of what they say. [/QUOTE] Yeah, my sister’s ex boyfriend in Tennessee: “Jew boh?” he asked me. “Pardon?” I replied. “Jew boh?” “Sorry?” He started to lose patience, so spoke slowly and loudly for me. “JEW. BOH.???” …and mimed rolling a ball in a bowling alley. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/49 "2007-12-21T16:06:23Z")
The only one I have a problem with is Geordie. I’m from the NW, so used to hearing Scousers and Mancs, and lived in Scotland for five years, so most Scottish is easy to understand, but Geordie is something else. > [@](#): > > Not the most annoying mind you. That’s reserved from anyone in the North. Geordies, Scousers & the like. Nah, southern accents are way more annoying. Essex? The West Country? Cockney? Let’s not even mention that the single most offensive accent in the history of mankind, RP, is way more prevalent in the south than in the north. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/50 "2007-12-21T16:12:37Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] Yup, I came in here to say some urban black people in America. They have their own dialect. Shit, go into Southeast DC and listen to some of those younger black people talk. Good luck understanding a lot of what they say. [/QUOTE] Try listening to the parent accent: Rural South East Coastal. My father used to go down to the barber shop when we’d visit his cousins’ farm in Bladen County, NC. He would talk with the old men there, but damed if I had any clue what was said. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/51 "2007-12-21T16:24:25Z")
[QUOTE=Mangosteen] Any good YouTube videos displaying incomprehensible English? [/QUOTE] There’s incomprehensible, and then there’s [incomprehensible](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIq6W7Qt-L8). ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/52 "2007-12-21T17:14:55Z")
A few years ago I had a temp job in a lab. My supervisor was from Northern Ireland. I don’t think I understood more than about five words he said to me in the whole six weeks I was there. Even after asking him to repeat himself two or three times. He was very soft-spoken, and yet had an accent so thick you could lag pipes with it. Having said that (and now I’ll feel old) some teenagers in London speak with such a mixture of urban US slang and Jamaican patois (especially, it seems, the lily-white ones) that I don’t have a clue what they’re on about… ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/53 "2007-12-21T22:38:49Z")
[I this really how English gypsies talk?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-0_sL5AAVQ) ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/54 "2007-12-21T23:37:17Z")
I need to put in a plug for Cajun. A cousin of mine (originally from Wisconsin, moved to the bayou when he was ten-ish) married a Cajun girl who had never been outside the swamp until he brought her north for a visit. Very sweet girl, as far as we could tell, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/55 "2007-12-22T02:56:59Z")
I feel like I’m fairly competent to answer this question. See, I worked in an Irish pub in Europe, so we got all sorts of expatriate anglos. Irish. My boss was from West Cork. He was unintelligible for the first few months I knew him. It was difficult. Not only are the normal words different, so is the grammar and the accent. Geordie. You know… I dunno, I really liked Geordies. They were all really nice and friendly in my opinion. Irish were difficult though. I really never met two irishmen with the same accent. I have no idea why… ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/56 "2007-12-22T03:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] Especially as the clip begins “I was having a fag”…typical hard-working Scotsman… [/QUOTE] A Mancunian friend (who happens to be gay, making it all the funnier) regaled me with the time he had an appointment to receive an American visitor coming for a consultation at his agency. Apparently, from his description, the building was U shaped, with an open garden close between the arms. The guest arrived early, and my friend, not anticipating this, had stepped out into the close for a cigarette before his arrival. “He’ll be with you shortly,” the receptionist told the visitor. “He’s out in the garden blowing a fag.” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/57 "2007-12-22T12:15:59Z")
[QUOTE=Sitnam] [I this really how English gypsies talk?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-0_sL5AAVQ) [/QUOTE] Post #22? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2007, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/58 "2007-12-22T23:14:26Z")
I understood that Glawegian guy (the one who took on the terrorist) without much difficulty. Couldn’t understand the soccer guy at all, but that was part of the comedy. I get along all right with context and facial expression etc–but that Scotland quiz–only voices with accents–that was hard. I find some Filipinos speaking English very hard to understand. Also, rapid speech from Yorkshire is hard (and there are some vocabulary issues there), and occasionally, I cannot understand Aussie. Cannot understand drunk Aussie at all. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/59 "2007-12-23T00:22:20Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] When the British film _The Acid House_ was distributed in the US, it mercifully included English subtitles. That was some incomprehensibleness there. [/QUOTE] Makes me wonder if US films are ever released with subtitles in the UK. **Sling Blade** , for example? Did that have subtitles there, or did y’all wade through the accents and dialect with no trouble? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2007, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692/60 "2007-12-23T00:22:56Z")
> [@](#): > > **jjimm** : And the hillbillies around Georgia, expressed best in Deliverance with the chap who asks “Huzpickinabanjaheahr?” Nyah! Never trust an actor in a role to best express any Southern dialect – even if he’s from the South. I was told by a New York television crew that I didn’t sound like I was from the South – despite the fact that I’ve never lived anywhere else but Tennessee. I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh…you want 'magnolia.” They laughed and I gave them _the drawl._ That was what they wanted. > [@](#): > > **jjimm** : “JEW. BOH.???” Well, didjew? 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unintelligible-english-accent/430692.md?page=4)