Last night I helped a guy out at a Mexican restaurant. He was making take-out burritos for my wife and me, and he wanted to know if I'd like diced jalapeno on my burrito. Only he said, "hallow-pea-no." And so I answered him, and corrected his dialect all in one smooth clip, "Halla-pain-yoh? Yes, I'd love some!" Then at the register, I asked for extra nachos and cheese. Putting on my teaching cap, I pronounced it "Kay-so" cheese, in case he was unaware of how to say it. Though in my defense, my burrito artist looked a little like Tom Green, though you never can tell.
Now those who know me--you're thinking, "I didn't know John knew Spanish!" And for those who know me even better--you're saying, "I can't believe John did it again!" Meaning, I'm actually not an international linguist, but do bad habit of automatically responding to accents by mimicking them. I just can't help it. And I'm not good at them either. In fact, my wife says all of my accents sound "pirate." And yet, whenever I hear an accent, I immediately speak back at the person just as they spoke to me, or so I think. Probably, it sounds either condescending, irritating, or ridiculous to the other person.
Two humorous stories come to mind--both from work. One involved a lunch meeting with our VP, two clients from the UK, Luann from my staff, and me. We chatted for awhile, and then the senior member of the reps from the UK (a man who spoke with his mouth full and had visible clumps of dandruff on his shoulder) began to pray for our food. He made the mistake of citing each of us by name in his prayer, without really knowing Luann and me very well, and so as it happened, he forgot our names just about the time he had committed to saying them. There was a long pause as he searched his mind for them... "and we thank you also for... (pause) (pause)..." at which point I chimed in helpfully, "JAWN AHND LOOAHN." I felt like I mimicked his accent perfectly--and he seiezed upon the names and finished his prayer. But I was laughing, and I knew Luann was too--so much so that I had to pretend to sniffle and be touched by his prayer. You can thank me later for my work toward international relations, wait perhaps until the whole body of my work can be judged. I'm not too humble to accept the Nobel, if it can be proved a fitting tribute.
On another occasion at work, we had a conference call. Two of my staff were with me in my office while we spoke on speakerphone with four or five others who were in London. As I heard each one from London greet each other with "HALL-OHH"--they then acknowledged me, having heard my name announced via the automated system. Someone with a British accent said, "Welcome, John" and so I gamely replied quite chirpily, "HALL-OHH," which immediately caused the three of us in the U.S. to lose it. Thankfully, I quickly gained my composure and chatted with the others while my two colleagues ducked their heads and covered their mouths.
I also enjoy pronouncing things EXACTLY the way native speakers say them. For instance, I now say Cuba as "COO-BA." And after years of pronouncing Italian as "EYE-Talian," my good friend Rena turned me on to saying it the correct way: "EH-Talian." When it comes to international linguistics, I just can't help myself--even if I do sound like a pirate.
Take-out burritos? What happened to the South Beach Diet? You are weak, my brother! Weak!!!
Posted by: Darnell Lamb | February 14, 2007 at 04:32 PM