Incomprehensible Accents

I have in previous posts made mention of occasional confusion caused by the differences in language between the US and UK. There is an additional problem that even when the words are the same, it seems that my pronunciation causes misunderstandings. Specifically, on several occasions I have asked for water and been met with a complete lack of comprehension. I have realized there is an easy solution to this linguistic issue; ask for wine or beer instead.

The other time that I find my accent is not what the listener understands is when I talk to my car’s GPS. The vocal instruction “Go Home”, which should have caused calculation of a route home, was met with the response “Showing campgrounds”; I hope Wendy was not showing some bizarre form of prescience. In case you were wondering, I have called my car’s GPS Wendy, because it has a female voice and looks after lost boys.

Published in:  on 17 February, 2007 at 16:17 Comments (4)

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4 Comments Leave a comment.

  1. I’d go for sounding Scottish.
    1. It seems to attract free beer
    2. You can’t possibly have a worse Scots accent than Mike Myers.

  2. Free Beer would be a positive.

    However, it is certainly possible to have a worse Scots accent that Mike Myers. If you don’t believe me I have just words for you; James Doohan

  3. People ask me why I lost my accent so fast. It’s because I was tired of not being understood (even though I had a plain London accent, not even Sauf Landan) and I was getting fed up with the “oh you’re English! Say something! :D ” conversations everywhere I went. Sometimes I just wanna buy a sandwich and a coffee without the hassle of some Anglophile fawning over me.

  4. [...] I love your accent A comment from Brit in the USA on my post concerning the problems of making myself understood talked about the way that people will comment on [...]


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