I don’t recall him mentioning people fussing about not understanding him, except maybe for one old Irish fellow, but I do remember stuff in the earlier books about not understanding what people were saying. Part of it was the difference in regional accents, but I think most of it was the unfamiliar slang and occasional mispronunciations/misuses. My personal favorites are him listening to his first case history and not understanding a word of it and “thou shittin’ old Bovril!”
TV’s Craig Ferguson (The Late Late Show) is from Glasgow.
Benny Hill was completely incomprehensible, but I suppose he wasn’t speaking the Queen’s English. And one couldn’t really infer meaning from context, because the context was always breasts.
I’m not surprised – there are times we cannot even understand each other.
I knew a girl whose family came out to NZ from Townsville in OZ (on the east coast… up towards the pointy bit) who had to take elocution lessons in NZ because Kiwis couldn’t understand her. 
MidAtlantic American and no problems at all. Oh, and I love the Arctic Monkeys, so thanks :D.
I remember when I was working for a short-order grill and taking orders, I could get orders and names just fine for a variety of US, Saudi Arabian, Indian, Japanese, African, European, and Latin American accents, but with Australians I had to ask them to repeat their orders several times, and the name “Paul” in an Australian accent didn’t sound like a name- or a word, or anything- to me.
I apologized to that guy a lot that day, because it was rather embarassing.
Smushed onto the back of the fork along with little bits of other food from the plate, using the knife to move the bits about and to press them onto the fork. I picked it up after being there for a few months and still find myself doing it sometimes without thinking.
Just in case anyone failed to get even the final translation:
“A Hedge is a Hedge. He only chopped it down because it spoilt his view. What is reaper moaning about?”
Actually, most Canadians pronounce those two words like “dowt” and “abowt”. The only time (and that was only a couple of times) I heard the stereotypical “doot” and “aboot” was in Toronto, and only among older people – I’m thinking it comes from a Scots inflection.
“Eh” of course is everywhere in Canada, and it is not a stereotype at all, but it sounds a little better than someone saying “y’know?” and “huh?”
Funny Americanisms - the pronounciation of “root” and “roof” where the double o is sounded like “uh”; the first doesn’t rhyme with “boot” and the second sounds like the noise a dog makes – what’s up with that? Not to mention using the English-sounded “ont” for “Aunt”, which in Canada is pronounced more like “ant”.
When I was a teenager living on the border with Minnesota, the kids from International Falls figured they could bug us by calling us “Limey”, which was hilarious enough (we, on the other hand referred to them as “Yanks”), but when we reminded them that all their Founding Fathers spoke like Limeys, it used to really tee them off…
I heard it all around Hamilton, Ontario, (Toronto area) but it was widespread throughout the generations. At least it seemed so to me. And it’s not quite that they’re pronouncing it “aboot.” To me, it sounds halfway between an “abowt” and “aboat.” It’s subtle, but it’s there. Whenever NPR plays CBC radio programs (like Definitely Not the Opera) here in the US, I notice it.
Here’s an example of the sound I’m talking about. Notice how she says “out” in “I decided to nerd out.”
The comment about the doctor was referring to Doctor Who, not the vet (we’d never call a vet a doctor, anyway) - I was responding to several comments in one paragraph, but of course quoting takes away that context. I doubt anyone back then would have found Herriot’s vet’s accent hard to understand because it would have been the RP accent used by every posh person and everyone in the media.
Benny Hill had a funny way of speaking - maybe he had speech impediment or maybe it was an affectation. I’m not surprised foreigners found him difficult to understand. Not that many people paid attention to the words, anyway.
I don’t know…to me she sounds more like a space cadet, than anything else.
Everyone I know says “owt” for out…it must be that American TV influence.
Um, “negro dialect” isn’t, er, the preferred term exactly.
We do have trouble catching everything the farmers say in All Creatures Great and Small, but we can safely assume there’s something wrong with that cow that will necessitate some poor sap putting his hand up where the sun doesn’t often shine.
The guy that plays Jake is not American, he’s an Australian that was born in the UK, iirc. So once your lot learn to speak proper English I suppose we’ll be able to understand what you say. Not sure why Cameron couldn’t afford a native English speaker for such a key role. Maybe his budget couldn’t cover that and all of the special effects?
I’d just like to add Glee to the list of things I can’t understand. This one is the hardest yet for me - I’m picking up about half the words, I think. I’ve only seen the first episode, so I’ll probably get used to it, but the worst culprit is the red-headed teacher who the main character talks to on occasion - I honestly can’t distinguish a word she’s saying! I’m half convinced she’s not saying anything and just mumbling incoherent sounds as some kind of joke!
I think the people in this talk faster than most US TV shows, and the accents seem thicker to me. I keep turning the volume up, but it’s not helping much!
Candyman74, I’m a native speaker of English with standard hearing, and I occasionally have trouble with Emma (the guidance counselor/ginger bushbaby) myself. I can’t quite think of the right adjective for her voice- it’s not exactly mushy, but it’s getting there.
I’m pretty sure the quotation marks were there to indicate a reference to the current well-known use of the phrase by Senator Harry Reid.
Saw Sherlock Holmes last night and I certainly missed some of what was said , my wife said the same.
She sounds a lot like me and everyone I know, except for slight differences - I wonder if she might be from B.C. If at some point we could retired the idea that all Canadians say “oot and aboot,” I would be really, really happy.
For me, a Canadian is instantly recognizable when they say about. It’s not so much the “aboot”, but the clarity of the end sound made. It’s very crisp in Canadians, not so much in Americans. It is a cross between abowt and aboat as said above, but also it is enunciated more precisely. Or so it sounds to my ears.
I love Craig Ferguson’s accent–I had no idea. I really cannot identify regions like that. I knew he was Scots, but that’s it. But I have no problem understanding him.
Glad to know that some Aussies and Kiwis have trouble with their own selves! I also have struggled (rarely) in the deep South with rapid speech.