Somebody asked me today whether I would be attending the Renaissance Festival this year. My response? “Unlikely, I grew up in England (I’m dual nationality nowadays), so I was around the Real Thing for a good part of my life. Nothing is more irritating than to be around a bunch of idiots trying to speak with a fake English accent and failing badly to sound remotely convincing, it really grates on my nerves.”

Let’s be frank here, if you were to meet somebody who is from say France or Spain or Japan, would you instantly start to mimic the way they talk? I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t. Why? because it’s incredibly rude!!! So WHY do so very many people think it is perfectly acceptable to do that to somebody with an English accent? Not only is it not acceptable, it’s downright insulting. Aside from the rudeness factor, there’s the stupidity factor. Unless you are a trained actor with years of elocution lessons, the chances are enormously high that no matter how authentic YOU think you sound, take it from me, you don’t. People have been trying to mimic my accent since I first moved to the States back in late 1981. It wasn’t funny then and it’s not funny now. Dropping all your consonants and speaking in falsetto with a weird jerking cadence makes you sound like you have a terrible speech impediment. Having heard these vulgar attempts at mimicry for over 20 years, I can assure you, it doesn’t get any less irritating. Let me help you out here: You do NOT sound cool. You DO sound retarded. You do NOT sound remotely authentic. You DO sound like you have a cleft palate or perhaps are gacking up a hairball.

Now run along and have fun at the Renaissance Festival.

Current Mood: chipper

This entry was posted on Monday, September 27th, 2004 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Reflective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.