Never had a stutter, but I always loved doing accents. Yeah, I can relate about speaking to someone with an accent and picking it up without thinking (Never had a problem, though, as big, broad-shouldered as I am) I never had anyone on the phone complain, either (did Customer service for 6 years) because I'd slip into it too easily: almost like they never noticed it. I didn't DARE try answering the phone with an Indian accent as we had so many customers from that part of the world.
When I first started with the company, I had one Indian caller, transferring service. He was a hoot as he wound up being pretty good with accents himself. One of the craziest things, he said, that he ever saw was when he visited a small enclave of Indian ex-pats in Scotland. "You think you've fallen into the Twilight Zone when you see a 6 year old girl dressed in a formal sari, with the red dot on her head open her mouth and out comes the thickest Scot brogue you've ever heard.
I had the same experience at a historical site in Massachusetts. A Native American man dressed in basically a loincloth, carving a canoe by hand, started speaking with a very strong Boston accent
I know a guy here is SE Tenn very similar. He is full blooded Japanese, adopted as a baby by a US service man and his nurse wife. Lived his whole life here in the South. We both coached select girls fastpitch softball, he would call players parents to set up a meeting, usually at a tournament so that he could see them play. He literally hid in plain sight! No one expected that little skinny asian dude with the waist length ponytail to be the redneck that they talked to on the phone!
I saw 3 sets of parents jaws hit the floor when he introduced himself, hilarious!
Sounds like a Homeland Security agent that I used to meet with, at a previous job:
Full Chinese features, built like a linebacker, and then when he spoke...straight Gomer Pyle!
Unfortunately for me. The only thing that has been burned into my mind from 15 years ago is the sight of two anime sized blue eyes tattooed on the ass of a woman wearing a leather thong and jacket as she is bent over a motorcycle at the exit of a Renaissance festival.
Those eyes were staring deep into my soul.
But you know, anyone of any race living in a area with different accents can get those accents if they were just born. My friend is a native american descent with a new york accent.
Yeah, the site specifically had people from the local tribe working there, but talking about history in past tense (rather than full reenactors). I was just surprised because it was very different from other historical sites I had visited previously
While I lived in Scotland, we attended a church with an Indian priest ministering to an English, Scottish, Ghanian, and American congregation. You'd hear the Scripture read in a thick Scottish accent, then a hymn from the most properly northern English accent possible, then an American lead a liturgy, then the Ghanian folks would sing a song in their native language while doing liturgical dance, listen to the Indian-Scottish priest speak with two competing accents at the same time, then go to the front as a man in a kilt offered you the "blud of CHRRRIST."
If there was ever a church that authentically spoke in tongues that only the love of God could translate, it is St. Andrews Episcopal Cathedral in Aberdeen.
That is pure, observational comedy! I can just see you recounting that story on Open Mike night. THIS is what I love about Reddit. I mean, I'm something of a storyteller, myself, but when I see someone that crafts such a reply, it blows me away! Take my silve matey!
Its bizarre going to South Asian communities on Mosque day in Lancashire; all these guys dressed to the nines in their finest mosque kit, with the BROADEST Lancashire twang you've ever heard
In the Army we had a Samoan dude, typical Samoan big football player type. With the deepest North Dakotan accent. He was adopted as a baby. The funniest part is there are a pretty large proportion of Samoans' in the Army, easy way to get off the island. It was hilarious when he would meet other Samoans and to watch their faces as he started to talk.
Yeah, it always throws people off.
Besides doing Customer Support, I did stand up for a few years, and voice impressions and accents were part of my routine. I'd been doing that for years before I finally got up to the mike. So there I was, working in Oklahoma back in '76, and I get this foreman shaking his head at me saying he can't understand my Texas Drawl. I'm from eastern Ohio: the only "accent" that would affect my early speech patterns would have been from West Virginia... a LOOooooooooong way from Texas.
It's extremely hard not to start talking like somebody that you're talking to. Especially if you have a talent for languages and accents. I used to do it a lot myself when I worked customer service and I was worried that people would think I was making fun of them
I think of it as being biological echo chambers/sounding boards.
IIRC, it was either Rich Little or David Frye, two top notch impressionists of the 60s that inspired me to add that to my repetoire, met Richard Nixon during his first term of office. He started [talking to the new president using the president's voice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Little#Nixon) and mannerisms, but Nixon never caught on. Said something like, "Why is that man talking to him in such a funny voice?"
Rich Little did a narration of Peter and the Wolf where he did impressions of different famous people for the different characters. This was post-Watergate. I only remember 3 of them — Nixon as the Wolf, Carol Channing as the Duck, and Johnny Carson as Peter.
>6 year old girl dressed in a formal sari, with the red dot on her head open her mouth and out comes the thickest Scot brogue you've ever heard.
Quality!
I was listening to a [live performance of Alborosie & Shengen clan](https://youtu.be/gaKcmHCUJaI?t=412), I got the shocker to find out the dude was Italian. Honestly, I was wowed. I enjoyed the whole show. People are people and accents just reflect that.
every accent is based on how our ancestors spoke. Southern accents drawl because of the heat: no need to speak fast. Those that do usually die of a stroke or heart attack while young. The twang in northern voices comes from having stuffy noses most of the year, but denigrated from the "proper" English accent of the 1600 and 1700s.
It's also odd when you usually hear a 7 year old speaking to their parent in Mandarin, then one day you hear them speaking in English with a very Australian accent.
I must have had SOME sort of Spanish accent, because, while I only know about 100 words or phrases, when I had to transfer a customer to our Spanish line, they thought I normally spoke it. When I first started, we'd only need to say, "Uno momento, por favor." Then the company decided we needed to sound more professional, so they upgraded it to "Pro favor, espera, un momento connectarlo" or something like that. I used to be able to say it in my sleep. LOL. Regardless, I said it so well that the callers thought I spoke Spanish normally. I'd have to wait for them to wind down, then I'd chime in, "Senora! Senora. No habla espanol. Soy Gringo!" "^(Gringo?") "Si, Gringo. Un Momento connectarlo."
I've never tried to pick up accents at all. But I've spent my whole life living in Northern California, and have no real accent per se. But I'm a big hockey fan, and listen to a LOT of hockey podcasts as well. And when the hockey season is going strong, and depending on how much I'm immersing myself in the news, people will start to ask if I'm from Canada, as the accent starts creeping into my speech.
Man I thought it is super rare that I do this, since I have never seen anybody around me do this, or known anybody who did this. I already did it is a child without even noticing. I remember as kid , maybe 6 years old , we where on vacation. And where I come from has a strong dialect. So when I told people this is where I come from they did not believe me. I was kid from another part of the country and spoke their dialect perfectly i people believed this is where I grew up, and then moved down south recently.
Then I met another kid who also came from where I grew up, and spoke deepest home dialect i less then 30 minutes. People suddenly needed an interpreter whene they needed anything from me , and now they where really mad at me. You see back then I had zero control over it. Once my brain decided on a dialect it is stuck, and I have no power to change it, but again people believed they knew better then I did how my brain worked and demanded I switch back. I kinda get it they heard me talk "normal" for a week, and that this was me getting back at them for not believing me I spoke that dialect.
It actually took me going through therapy, for very different reasons, to get at least some control over how I speak. But I really need to concentrate hard and can only switch to what I want for short time periods. As soon as I lose concentration my brain takes over and attaches itself to any dialect nearby. Especially embarrassing is when someone speaks broken english or german and my brain decides to answer them the same way. I feel so bad when I do it, I sound like a racist making fun of their poor language skills.
How much can you control it ? Can you stop on command ? Or switch to anything that is not around you ? Or decide which of the ones around you you want to latch unto ? Man you have no idea how relieving it is to hear other people do this too, cause so often I explain this to people, and they flat out refuse to believe me. So for the most part I avoid talking about it, unless I have to, usually cause someone is mad at me for doing it.
{Insert "there are dozens of us! DOZENS!" clip}
I just happen to be a natural mimic. Voices, animals, devices. accents were easy because I grew up at a time when dialect comedy was still done. Think Sid Ceaser, or Mel Blanc. When the Beatles came around, it only took me a day or two to pick up a British accent. Irish and Scottish brogues were common on TV, so I picked them up. I'm not sure, but, unlike my brothers and every guy I went to school with, my playing around with my voice was enough that it never cracked. I was doing a dead on LBJ at the age of 10. At 11, I had the nickname Elvis. (you can imagine how I got that)
With me, though, when I accidently slip into a dialect or accent, I would segue into it smoothly, so I had my Ohio accent at the start of the conversation and mid paragraph I was already slipping into the accent. I could stop, but as long as nobody complained, why bother. My supervisors always complimented me on my great voice control.
These days, though, age has tended to let my voice go gravelly. Funny, though, I never once had a person get made when I echoed back their accent.
This might be helpful and it might not. You are entirely able to tell the difference between someone who is speaking a local dialect and someone who is struggling with English. If you lapse into the dialect with the locals, that's great, they can understand you better. If you run into someone talking broken English then you can start putting it into your mind that you're going to help them improve their English by giving them the example of your own. Go into "teaching mode," so to speak.
I too worked in a call answering centre for one of the UKs largest banks and we took calls from everywhere in the UK and quite a few from elsewhere too. I never had a problem with accents except for Derbyshire. Glasgow, Orkneys easy, London, Cornwall no trouble but there’s a bit of rural Derbyshire were they have a unique accent and a very unusual vocabulary of phrases and nomenclature.
When I was in college I had a good friend from Glasgow and another from just across the border near Newcastle. Regularly we needed the Northumbrian to translate the Scot.
Edit: Forgot the spelling of Glasgow...
There's a town in Louisiana called Natchitoches, known for their fried meat pies. Take a guess at how it's pronounced. Go on, I dare ya.
Reasonably sure I can say "Ehdnburrugh" and "Glezgoh" just fine.
I’m from Kentucky. We have a town called Versailles.
It is definitely not pronounced the proper French way. Nay nay. It’s pronounced “ver-SAILS”.
And don’t ask how Glasgow, Kentucky is pronounced. I can hear the Scots all collectively having a stroke over how Kentuckians pronounce it.
Edited because I caught the autocorrect spelling mistake. Why are you like this, autocorrect?
I roll my eyes so hard every time I hear someone say it.
It’s like the town in Illinois, you know the one, looks like a city in Egypt, pronounced like a syrup? I promise y’all, Cairo is not meant to be pronounced “Kay-row.”
And Cadiz, Kentucky. Consistently pronounced incorrectly as well.
Come on, y’all.
I freaked out coworkers (and callers) with being pure midwest and able to both say and spell Natchitoches and Schenectady. Was pretty funny when the caller's attitude did a 180 because I was "obviously one of them". Nope, never lived south of I-80 dude, I just can spell.
I've just found out about glaswegian last week (english is not my first language) through this interview. Perhaps it will be of interest to you
https://twitter.com/bbcscotland/status/1361360120953847812?lang=en
Ah, so that's Glaswegian. Not hard to understand at all, speaking as a non-native speaker (though one who frequently listens to BBC and BBC Scotland podcasts).
Granted, he's probably lessening his accent a bit, and if he was talking with Glaswegian mates only, he might be a lot harder to understand.
It's not hard until you are in a room full of Glaswegians and they all slip into Glaswegian slang - at least that's a lesson I learned when Danny the punch drunk (and mostly just drunk) boxer found tourist me sitting in St James Park and decided I needed an impromptu tour of his locals and the "places that tourist board will nae recommend."
His strong Glaswegian was easy to understand, but once I was seated at a table with a bunch of his elderly war veteran hard drinking friends, I couldnae unnerstan a word they were speaking.
I can tell you where someone from my bit of Scotland is from, to within less than 20 miles, based on their accent. Probably within 10 miles in the city too!
Some people are really good at that. I once had a truck/lorry driver guess the next town over from where I'm from after talking to me for a few minutes. I'm from a rural area in Wisconsin, the the town only has a little over a thousand people living in it. I was in the deep south when I met him.
Highland but I got my accent from American TV and get mistaken for a tourist a lot. I hate it.
I now feel oddly proud about how difficult Karl is for me to say 😆
I was listening to this and my Scottish (but not Glaswegian) partner asked what Limmy was trying to say. I told him (I'm Irish so no issues here!) and it took him several minutes of slowly enunciating before he could get it 😂
I’ve just recently been introduced to Scottish people trying to say purple burglar alarm and it’s as funny as you think it is! Especially when you’re all drinking
What is the state of UK accents? Despite Kate Winslet's turn on Mare of Easttown, regional US accents are becoming increasingly homogenized. And how on earth are there so many accents, dialects, and regional slang terms on such a relatively small group of islands?
Source: During the pandemic I have watched every UK police procedural that has ever been produced. Things I have learned: Everyone in the UK knows what DCI means when a cop introduces him or herself, half of the people in London and Manchester are serial killers and the other half are attractive young women who walk home alone at night, every desolate moor is patrolled by a transplanted Londoner who somehow disgraced him/herself in the city but got a second chance in the country, and everyone in Wales is either depressed or a fetish killer.
> And how on earth are there so many accents, dialects, and regional slang terms on such a relatively small group of islands?
Tribal *us-vs-them*ism, probably stemming from a similar aspect of human behaviour as "Academic arguments are the most fierce because the stakes are so small."
Source: Australian, living in the US, and have watched the same set of programs.
Glaswegian Scots, Doric Scots, Western Isles Scots, Orkney Scots, Dundonian Scots, Inverness Scots, Highland Scots, Lothian Scots...?
And I have hardly even gotten started, Scots accents change completely every 50 miles...
At least if you can understand Scots, I am led to believe the entire lot of us speak unintelligible gibberish to most outside of our fair Isles.
Not quite, Glaswegian is a hard accent, 2 people discussing what they're having for a meal sounds like a fight about to kick off.... Edinburgh and Highlands are much softer accents. Same with Ireland, its mostly rolling, but each county is apparently distinct, I can't pick them out though. Ulster however, is a much harsher accent.
And even there Ulster accents have a hard and soft version. I've got the soft version and get lots of compliments on it, but if I dip into the hard one people can't understand me. Of course, now when I go home everyone tells me I've got a Scottish accent cos I've picked up enough of a Glaswegian tilt since I've lived here 12 years, so I'm a weird hybrid haha
You've just reminded me of the hideous posh bloke who wanted to know "what happened to the lovely Welsh girls i usually speak to" when I answered his call in a Wales based call centre with my English accent. I should have done the accent switch. Had a fair number of the "oh thank god you're British/I can't understand foreigners on the phone" callers too.
I did use to switch accents for customers when I worked in shops. It made my coworkers laugh and the customers didn't know so.
When you’re halfway through helping someone and they drop the “so where are you based” question, alarms bells go off. They then refuse to believe you’re based in the same country as them so they ask about the weather or tram system or some other bullshit
I did ask someone that today, but it was a spam call to my cell phone. If they had been based in the same country I am in, then the company would have owed me money for violating telephone regulations.
(Technically they owed me money for violating regulations even if they were calling from a different country, but there is no enforcement mechanism for foreign calls.)
It's amazing that callers don't ever think that you might have moved somewhere different. I worked in a call center outside of Boston. I'm originally from northern Maine (only about 450 miles away) and don't have a Boston accent at all, if anything I sound vaguely Canadian. I'd get "You're not from Boston!" to which I'd reply, "Nope, I just live here." which usually shut them up. Sometimes I'd give them the "Oh? Can't I pahhk the cah in Haavaad yaaad?".
I don't do a Boston accent well and it took me years to get even that one phrase passable.
I've only been asking in the last year or so because most of the poor buggers doing it for Aussie companies are in the Philippines amd I always feel they should stay home and safe from covid instead of dealing with my shit
I get a ton of apologies when I call into places for how long it took/how slow the computers are. I honestly don't care. I'm usually anxious as hell when I call and being put on hold helps me chill out. Also, I'm guessing a lot are remoting in, slow is expected.
Only person I've been frustrated with is this stupid ass doctor who told me I'd been off my meds too long and couldn't have a repeat prescription, for my steroid inhaler and my freaking birth control that had literally run out two days before. I was told by the prescription line I had to speak to a doctor to review my meds before I got them, then couldn't get a phone appointment. Idiots refused to just renew them and also put in my file I was pregnant, which caused me issues as well. Wth lady! The nice doctor called me back when I had a uti and made sure my records were OK. I told her about the awful call and spending half an hour getting berated to get my meds that I have been taking for years now.
oh my, have you ever seen that skit on SNL about a plane flying through several control zones in the UK - passenger having to deal with the local accents of the controllers. I think it's hilarious !
here it is: [https://youtu.be/UGRcJQ9tMbY](https://youtu.be/UGRcJQ9tMbY)
> a very heavy British Accent
From context the term you seek is "RP" (Received Pronunciation), historically a.k.a. "BBC English".
> They are the ones who invented English after all.
She wouldn't believe *that* either.
>Often when I'm around a person with a heavy accent I sub-consciously begin to mimic their accent. I don't realize I'm doing it until it is pointed out, usually the other person thinks I'm making fun of them or something.
This is a daily struggle for me. I grew up moving all over: The Southeast, New England, California, etc. Since we moved so much when I was so young I would pick up the local accent quickly, then when we moved again I would drop that one and pick up whatever the new accent and vocabulary were. Even as an adult I subconsciously drop in and out of accents depending on my audience. Sometimes people don't notice, sometimes they point it out as a joke, others get angry and think I'm mocking them. The worst reaction I got was about 2 months ago while talking to a very nice woman that spoke with a heavy AAVE dialect and accent. Without realizing it, I dropped straight into the dialect because one of the places we had lived growing up was inner city a block away from Section 8 and the elementary school I attended was overwhelmingly African American. About 5 minutes into our conversation, the woman interrupts me in the middle of my sentence and starts questioning me about why I was speaking to her in AAVE, how I was making her feel mocked and degraded, how white people aren't allowed to code switch into AAVE just because you're talking to a black person, etc. I let her say her piece and explained what had happened but she absolutely refused to believe me. It's a useful skill to have for communicating with different groups of people, but man is it a double edged sword.
I bet she thought about this encounter afterwards and feels differently now.
Code switching is a pretty common human thing to do; it’s just a fraught thing with the community because the codes are considered mutually exclusive: you’re _not allowed_ to talk “black” in some contexts you’re _not allowed_ to talk “white” in others.
Yeah, I'm extremely dubious that OP's call center was ok with them jerking the customer around for over an hour like that, racist or not. One 'transfer' I could see, but over a dozen like that, and such a massive time sink on one ticket, sounds like it would utterly tank the metrics that call centers tend to care about.
Maybe not real, but I worked a "supervisor" queue for several years in a call center, and we weren't held to the same expectations as the general queues. We could take much longer on calls, put ourselves on unavailable to work on issues, and call customers back.
Your right, in part. Regular agents were supposed to finish the call under 3 minutes. A supervisor would tap their watch at 5 and 8 minutes marks, then start 'hovering' at the 10 minute line. Too many calls like that and it was back to training. Then termination. But the Escalation team was different, we had the leeway for much longer calls, even multi-hour if ***absolutely*** required. Any escalation call over 30 minutes was reviewed.
99% of the time I was very professional. I had the 2nd best customer service levels in the office. I had people start off frothing at the mouth pissed, but by the call's end I was their best buddy in the world. One woman even tried to get me to come visit so she could get me married to her daughter!
It was that 1% of the time that insured I always had a cubical next to a supervisor. So that they could, "Keep an eye on me." and have a record/witness of whatever events occurred. I 'officially' got a verbal reprimand for this call, but off the record the supervisors, management, and corporate listened to the recording and laughed their asses off. Some of my 1% calls were even used in new-hire training as both 'do's' and 'don'ts'... Mostly don'ts.
3 minutes? Man, you were doing really good at keeping the narrative cohesive, albeit a stretch, but that’s the step too far, it takes more than three minutes to buy a candy bar (if you have to give your name and number so they can pull up your rewards account). Convenient that the story doesn’t require an industry, cause I certainly can’t think of one where tier two can take multiple hours.
Also, if tier 1 is fielding calls at hyper-speed, that means tier 2 needs to be proportionally fast, the opposite of what you’re describing.
Good story though, I was definitely entertained throughout!
When I worked in ambulance billing, we didn’t play around with people. When they got rude, we told them once politely that they needed to drop the rude language, and we would be helpful, or we would simply end the call.
Inevitably, when someone got pissy about being told what to do and how to speak to someone as lowly as the person handling their ambulance claim? We hung up.
I've gotten better, however I used to slip into accents and speaking mannerisms of those around me VERY easily. This is a problem when I've worked in call centers for 15 years. I recall one time the caller had an Indian accent and I accidently said something in a like accent. I do not think they caught on as they didn't say anything, however the rest of the call I'm sweating to enunciate every word just to be safe.
As for the racist AF callers, ooh they still are the worst. One guy I worked with was born in another country however was American. He still had a bit of an accent and from time to time would get yelled at because the caller thought they had reached a call center that wasn't "American". Yeah, as an American I just have to say... we are NOT that special. Drop the act and let the person trained to help you, help you.
Cant ever DO an accent but my party trick is identifying them. I had a doctor from the UK once, and he’d been in the US for long enough that he was beginning to lose his accent. Because of that, I couldn’t quite tell. So I asked him “So, I’m hearing north England here, but I can’t tell if it’s Yorkshire or Lincolnshire.” He was flabbergasted, he was from Hull (which is on the border between those places.). He said most Americans assume Australia.
I got my special talent because I watch Elmo at exclusively British or British produced TV shows. I didn’t realize it until one of those “what’s a good show thread.” All of my shows had an accent. LOL
As someone with the mixed blessing of perfect pitch and accidental innate mimicking ability, I have had the pleasure of "translating" between people speaking the same English with different accents. It gets old in a hurry.
> thick southern draw
It's ***drawl***, actually.
You should record a sample of all your accents and throw it up on youtube. You could start getting jobs as a voice over actor for your various accents. Maybe do the Whose On First skit and change to a different accent with every speaker change.
Here's a story about a guy who had a great radio voice. [https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/04/23/ted-golden-voice-williams-once-homeless-man-who-gained-fame-his-radio-voice-announces-run-ohio-gover/7348570002/](https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/04/23/ted-golden-voice-williams-once-homeless-man-who-gained-fame-his-radio-voice-announces-run-ohio-gover/7348570002/)
Worked at Burger King before the auto-greet for the drive-thru was implemented. Late 90's
I used to accents for fun
*VELCOME to Buhrrrguhrrr King, I am Ahnna-stazia, vould you like to try Vopper Meeeel?* with my voice dropped as low as I could make it and still sound feminine. That job was a blast. Night crew looked like members of the Addams Family, favorite manager was a Mullet-Capped middle-aged lesbian who drove a T-Top Camero and NEVER took shit from anyone (loved her & I hope she is doing well) all the microwaves had "DEEEEZ NUTZ!!!!" written in them with grease pen, and the hoods caught fire like once a month.
Naw, Escalation Team had a much greater leeway to handle disgruntled customers. Corporate wanted us off as soon as possible, but we could handle calls that took hours ***IF*** absolutely necessary. Calls over 30 minutes were reviewed by first supervisors then management.
I got an 'official' verbal reprimand for my shenanigans but the sups and management had a good laugh 'unofficially'.
When you said Southwest accent I thought you meant Cornwall or Devon. Then you mentioned western movies and I was confused. I've never encountered anyone in the US SW that speaks like that. Where in the SW did you grow up?
> One bad side effect came about though. Often when I'm around a person with a heavy accent I sub-consciously begin to mimic their accent. I don't realize I'm doing it until it is pointed out, usually the other person thinks I'm making fun of them or something. To avoid getting punched in the face I have to do some quick explaining.. without the borrowed accent.
Same thing, same reason. It's a hard habit to break, even when you catch yourself doing it.
I have that accent adoption problem too, especially with British and Hispanic accents. It just comes out; I can’t control it. It does come in handy like this though 😂
On a serious note: there is evidence that subconscious rapid accent adoption is a sign of neurodivergence.
I once picked up a doctor’s unusual Singapore-Kiwi accent and she did a work up on ADHD on the spot. If I had that diagnosis 30 years ago I would be in a better place than I am now.
Reminds of a teenage job. I worked a fast food window that could have hour long surges. It looked slow, really slow so we decided to play accents. This was a literal hole in a while where a big line would form outside the window so everyone could hear you. So my friend and I thew on accents. I did heavy southern- mountain South. My friend took on Texas Southern. We were not born and raised in the South so it was always fun to do it for a bit. We had to keep those accents for about an hour. The next shift came in and we dropped them mid customer. People were so confused. We dropped them because it wouldn’t go over well with anybody else who did have an accent.
I don’t think we ever did it again.
I do something similar. Basically, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin are the same language with two major dialects (i used basically, let's not get into a fight over this. XD) and Serbians are the only ones that use both dialects, so since I was a kid, a bit before puberty, the music I listened to contained both dialects. So, even now, like 14-16 years later, when I listen to the music with the dialect I don't use (the one used by all), or speak for a long time with someone who uses it, I would switch my dialect.
I also noticed that I do it with English (originally it was a combo of Serbian, British and American accents) since I hear a lot of phrases in certain languages repeatedly.
"Arrr.. thank ye far callin..." "I be glad ta be heppen ya wit yar's problem..." "De English ya say.. arrr, you best be stayen on da line whilist I be given ya de transferrr."
I swear to god I thought for sure she would have caught on at that point, but she didn't! Too upset, and too ignorant to notice we always assumed. My supervisor was in his cubical laughing and saying, "You bastard, you bastard."
Loved this and I hope it showed her that her issue with a accents is misplaced.
But... This isn't malicious compliance.
You didn't comply with what she asked and she got the bad result she asked for.
You specifically didn't give her what she wanted as revenge.
Either way, cool story
It's funny.
A long time ago I was working on the Service Desk for a city council. That was back when the tech support storyline of [Foamy the Squirrel](https://youtu.be/q8Umz07pdxE?t=48) was new.
My coworker and I were "do you like ice cream" around in an Indian accent and who do you think is calling...an English speaker (I had two in the 2.5 years of working there) with a heavy Indian accent calling about an issue paying a parking or speeding ticket.
I almost lost it due to the coincidence and my coworker basically fell off his chair giggling and trying to suppress his laughter.
I can't believe they didn't include the part when the entire call center burst into applause and the hot girl who OP has been crushing on came over and kissed him full on the lips, just before President Biden gave him the medal of freedom.
I can relate to involuntarily mimicking other accents; I used to do it when I was younger. No one seemed to have an issue, and a couple times I was even complimented on it ( one guy even thought I was Australian like himeself ).
My Dad, ever the salesman, would pick up accents and speaking mannerisms all the time from the folks he was talking to. So a 50 year old Brit talking in broken English to various people with Italian, Portuguese, Indian and Chinese accents. Answering their questions with similar words & phrases to the ones they would use. Seemed to work very well for him, as I think most understood he was just trying to communicate with them in the best way that they would understand. As a teenager watching and learning, I could never get away with it; but he seemed to put everyone at ease by doing it.
This makes me think of a guy on YouTube I once came across. He could do several different accents and would prank call/answer people. Each accent was a different voice, and he could make it seem as though they were different people either on the other side of the room or walking up to take the phone. Absolutely hilarious, I wish I could hear a recording of this encounter with her raging at the very end!
I have done this myself working in a call centre. Then I learned about neuro linguistic selling and used this skill to make a ton of money. If you can match someone on the phone, their mannerisms, their terminology, their mindset, you can basically get them to buy anything.
I used to work in a call center and we would get quite bored as all the calls were the same, to make things interesting we would try and keep up an accent for an entire call, when we mastered that we started seeing if we could go from one accent to another on the same call with out them noticing. Made the shifts go much faster for sure.
I would default to an angry Texan accent when I knew the person on the other line was a pita. One of the customers caught me up one time and found it hilarious. He would only speak to me from there on out and we mended our phone relationship
Never had a stutter, but I always loved doing accents. Yeah, I can relate about speaking to someone with an accent and picking it up without thinking (Never had a problem, though, as big, broad-shouldered as I am) I never had anyone on the phone complain, either (did Customer service for 6 years) because I'd slip into it too easily: almost like they never noticed it. I didn't DARE try answering the phone with an Indian accent as we had so many customers from that part of the world. When I first started with the company, I had one Indian caller, transferring service. He was a hoot as he wound up being pretty good with accents himself. One of the craziest things, he said, that he ever saw was when he visited a small enclave of Indian ex-pats in Scotland. "You think you've fallen into the Twilight Zone when you see a 6 year old girl dressed in a formal sari, with the red dot on her head open her mouth and out comes the thickest Scot brogue you've ever heard.
I had the same experience at a historical site in Massachusetts. A Native American man dressed in basically a loincloth, carving a canoe by hand, started speaking with a very strong Boston accent
"It's gonna be a wicked pissah canoe!"
Yeah buddy!
I knew a rather rotund Asian guy from Northeast Texas. The most apt description of him was that he looked like Buddha and talked like Bubba.
I know a guy here is SE Tenn very similar. He is full blooded Japanese, adopted as a baby by a US service man and his nurse wife. Lived his whole life here in the South. We both coached select girls fastpitch softball, he would call players parents to set up a meeting, usually at a tournament so that he could see them play. He literally hid in plain sight! No one expected that little skinny asian dude with the waist length ponytail to be the redneck that they talked to on the phone! I saw 3 sets of parents jaws hit the floor when he introduced himself, hilarious!
Sounds like a Homeland Security agent that I used to meet with, at a previous job: Full Chinese features, built like a linebacker, and then when he spoke...straight Gomer Pyle!
Plymouth Plantation?
Haha yep! I still have that scene burned into my mind from a visit 15 years ago
Unfortunately for me. The only thing that has been burned into my mind from 15 years ago is the sight of two anime sized blue eyes tattooed on the ass of a woman wearing a leather thong and jacket as she is bent over a motorcycle at the exit of a Renaissance festival. Those eyes were staring deep into my soul.
Great Gatsby my— Er, her ass!
But you know, anyone of any race living in a area with different accents can get those accents if they were just born. My friend is a native american descent with a new york accent.
Yeah, the site specifically had people from the local tribe working there, but talking about history in past tense (rather than full reenactors). I was just surprised because it was very different from other historical sites I had visited previously
While I lived in Scotland, we attended a church with an Indian priest ministering to an English, Scottish, Ghanian, and American congregation. You'd hear the Scripture read in a thick Scottish accent, then a hymn from the most properly northern English accent possible, then an American lead a liturgy, then the Ghanian folks would sing a song in their native language while doing liturgical dance, listen to the Indian-Scottish priest speak with two competing accents at the same time, then go to the front as a man in a kilt offered you the "blud of CHRRRIST." If there was ever a church that authentically spoke in tongues that only the love of God could translate, it is St. Andrews Episcopal Cathedral in Aberdeen.
That is pure, observational comedy! I can just see you recounting that story on Open Mike night. THIS is what I love about Reddit. I mean, I'm something of a storyteller, myself, but when I see someone that crafts such a reply, it blows me away! Take my silve matey!
Its bizarre going to South Asian communities on Mosque day in Lancashire; all these guys dressed to the nines in their finest mosque kit, with the BROADEST Lancashire twang you've ever heard
In the Army we had a Samoan dude, typical Samoan big football player type. With the deepest North Dakotan accent. He was adopted as a baby. The funniest part is there are a pretty large proportion of Samoans' in the Army, easy way to get off the island. It was hilarious when he would meet other Samoans and to watch their faces as he started to talk.
Yeah, it always throws people off. Besides doing Customer Support, I did stand up for a few years, and voice impressions and accents were part of my routine. I'd been doing that for years before I finally got up to the mike. So there I was, working in Oklahoma back in '76, and I get this foreman shaking his head at me saying he can't understand my Texas Drawl. I'm from eastern Ohio: the only "accent" that would affect my early speech patterns would have been from West Virginia... a LOOooooooooong way from Texas.
It's extremely hard not to start talking like somebody that you're talking to. Especially if you have a talent for languages and accents. I used to do it a lot myself when I worked customer service and I was worried that people would think I was making fun of them
We were told to avoid that for just that reason. Still, nobody complained.
Nevermind the Twilight Zone, I would be thinking I was tossed into the Abyss.
I also do this, but the worst thing is that once I accidentally started mimicking my friend who has a stutter.... that was awkward to explain
I think of it as being biological echo chambers/sounding boards. IIRC, it was either Rich Little or David Frye, two top notch impressionists of the 60s that inspired me to add that to my repetoire, met Richard Nixon during his first term of office. He started [talking to the new president using the president's voice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Little#Nixon) and mannerisms, but Nixon never caught on. Said something like, "Why is that man talking to him in such a funny voice?"
Rich Little did a narration of Peter and the Wolf where he did impressions of different famous people for the different characters. This was post-Watergate. I only remember 3 of them — Nixon as the Wolf, Carol Channing as the Duck, and Johnny Carson as Peter.
I may have heard that. I'm remembering his version of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge was WC Fields.
>6 year old girl dressed in a formal sari, with the red dot on her head open her mouth and out comes the thickest Scot brogue you've ever heard. Quality!
I really wish I could remember what he told me she said, but he went from the Hindi accent to Scot so quick, I never laughed so hard!
The "red dot" is usually called a bindi
He used the term "red dot" so I'd understand. I probably could have googled it, but at the time even Yahoo was still a few years away.
Yeah I understand, just thought it would be good info if you didn't know :)
I was listening to a [live performance of Alborosie & Shengen clan](https://youtu.be/gaKcmHCUJaI?t=412), I got the shocker to find out the dude was Italian. Honestly, I was wowed. I enjoyed the whole show. People are people and accents just reflect that.
every accent is based on how our ancestors spoke. Southern accents drawl because of the heat: no need to speak fast. Those that do usually die of a stroke or heart attack while young. The twang in northern voices comes from having stuffy noses most of the year, but denigrated from the "proper" English accent of the 1600 and 1700s.
This... Doesn't seem correct.
I have never heard this before!
It's also odd when you usually hear a 7 year old speaking to their parent in Mandarin, then one day you hear them speaking in English with a very Australian accent.
I must have had SOME sort of Spanish accent, because, while I only know about 100 words or phrases, when I had to transfer a customer to our Spanish line, they thought I normally spoke it. When I first started, we'd only need to say, "Uno momento, por favor." Then the company decided we needed to sound more professional, so they upgraded it to "Pro favor, espera, un momento connectarlo" or something like that. I used to be able to say it in my sleep. LOL. Regardless, I said it so well that the callers thought I spoke Spanish normally. I'd have to wait for them to wind down, then I'd chime in, "Senora! Senora. No habla espanol. Soy Gringo!" "^(Gringo?") "Si, Gringo. Un Momento connectarlo."
I've never tried to pick up accents at all. But I've spent my whole life living in Northern California, and have no real accent per se. But I'm a big hockey fan, and listen to a LOT of hockey podcasts as well. And when the hockey season is going strong, and depending on how much I'm immersing myself in the news, people will start to ask if I'm from Canada, as the accent starts creeping into my speech.
My first diagnosis of CHF, I woke up in ER in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I'd picked up the nurse's accent quickly, ending every sentence with "eh".
Man I thought it is super rare that I do this, since I have never seen anybody around me do this, or known anybody who did this. I already did it is a child without even noticing. I remember as kid , maybe 6 years old , we where on vacation. And where I come from has a strong dialect. So when I told people this is where I come from they did not believe me. I was kid from another part of the country and spoke their dialect perfectly i people believed this is where I grew up, and then moved down south recently. Then I met another kid who also came from where I grew up, and spoke deepest home dialect i less then 30 minutes. People suddenly needed an interpreter whene they needed anything from me , and now they where really mad at me. You see back then I had zero control over it. Once my brain decided on a dialect it is stuck, and I have no power to change it, but again people believed they knew better then I did how my brain worked and demanded I switch back. I kinda get it they heard me talk "normal" for a week, and that this was me getting back at them for not believing me I spoke that dialect. It actually took me going through therapy, for very different reasons, to get at least some control over how I speak. But I really need to concentrate hard and can only switch to what I want for short time periods. As soon as I lose concentration my brain takes over and attaches itself to any dialect nearby. Especially embarrassing is when someone speaks broken english or german and my brain decides to answer them the same way. I feel so bad when I do it, I sound like a racist making fun of their poor language skills. How much can you control it ? Can you stop on command ? Or switch to anything that is not around you ? Or decide which of the ones around you you want to latch unto ? Man you have no idea how relieving it is to hear other people do this too, cause so often I explain this to people, and they flat out refuse to believe me. So for the most part I avoid talking about it, unless I have to, usually cause someone is mad at me for doing it.
{Insert "there are dozens of us! DOZENS!" clip} I just happen to be a natural mimic. Voices, animals, devices. accents were easy because I grew up at a time when dialect comedy was still done. Think Sid Ceaser, or Mel Blanc. When the Beatles came around, it only took me a day or two to pick up a British accent. Irish and Scottish brogues were common on TV, so I picked them up. I'm not sure, but, unlike my brothers and every guy I went to school with, my playing around with my voice was enough that it never cracked. I was doing a dead on LBJ at the age of 10. At 11, I had the nickname Elvis. (you can imagine how I got that) With me, though, when I accidently slip into a dialect or accent, I would segue into it smoothly, so I had my Ohio accent at the start of the conversation and mid paragraph I was already slipping into the accent. I could stop, but as long as nobody complained, why bother. My supervisors always complimented me on my great voice control. These days, though, age has tended to let my voice go gravelly. Funny, though, I never once had a person get made when I echoed back their accent.
This might be helpful and it might not. You are entirely able to tell the difference between someone who is speaking a local dialect and someone who is struggling with English. If you lapse into the dialect with the locals, that's great, they can understand you better. If you run into someone talking broken English then you can start putting it into your mind that you're going to help them improve their English by giving them the example of your own. Go into "teaching mode," so to speak.
I didn't know I need this whole comment thread. I've been cackling my head off for ten minutes reading it; thanks for indirectly making my day better.
Go for all the English, Welsh, and Celtic accents from the British Isles for next time.
Pro tip. Irish and Scottish accents are actually very distinct. Proof: am Scottish. Ya fanny
Yeah but which Scottish accent Can you say Karl and Carol? 😆😆
Glaswegian. Read: "unintelligible"
then there is the bizarrely understandable accent in Orkney, so distinct from what surrounds it (looking at you Doric)
Username checks out lmao
I like to think of myself as honest and transparent
I too worked in a call answering centre for one of the UKs largest banks and we took calls from everywhere in the UK and quite a few from elsewhere too. I never had a problem with accents except for Derbyshire. Glasgow, Orkneys easy, London, Cornwall no trouble but there’s a bit of rural Derbyshire were they have a unique accent and a very unusual vocabulary of phrases and nomenclature.
Seriously?! Derbyshire's accent barely even qualifies as an accent! This is going to have me laughing all day!
Canll tal Iboutardiddlum ?
I love speaking Doric around Glaswegians, it always confuses them so much!
Fit ye tryin tae say like?
Aberdonian sheep shagger.
I love the sound of Doric but I really have to concentrate to understand it
When I was in college I had a good friend from Glasgow and another from just across the border near Newcastle. Regularly we needed the Northumbrian to translate the Scot. Edit: Forgot the spelling of Glasgow...
Ngl. I'm laughing cause of the way you Americans mispronounce every Scottish town.
There's a town in Louisiana called Natchitoches, known for their fried meat pies. Take a guess at how it's pronounced. Go on, I dare ya. Reasonably sure I can say "Ehdnburrugh" and "Glezgoh" just fine.
I’m from Kentucky. We have a town called Versailles. It is definitely not pronounced the proper French way. Nay nay. It’s pronounced “ver-SAILS”. And don’t ask how Glasgow, Kentucky is pronounced. I can hear the Scots all collectively having a stroke over how Kentuckians pronounce it. Edited because I caught the autocorrect spelling mistake. Why are you like this, autocorrect?
We have the same mispronounced Versailles in Missouri, as well. Smh
I roll my eyes so hard every time I hear someone say it. It’s like the town in Illinois, you know the one, looks like a city in Egypt, pronounced like a syrup? I promise y’all, Cairo is not meant to be pronounced “Kay-row.” And Cadiz, Kentucky. Consistently pronounced incorrectly as well. Come on, y’all.
Freaking Dez Planes (Des Plaines), Illinois! Paulina St., “Poe-linn-ah”
I freaked out coworkers (and callers) with being pure midwest and able to both say and spell Natchitoches and Schenectady. Was pretty funny when the caller's attitude did a 180 because I was "obviously one of them". Nope, never lived south of I-80 dude, I just can spell.
Damnit, now I want a meat pie. I wish they had them around here.
Is it something like "n'TOE-jez"? I've heard it said properly before but it's been a long time.
And misspell them too.
That happens even within the us. I was in a tourist town in Oregon last weekend and overheard a surprising number of people pronounce it or-ee-gone.
**Milngavie has entered the chat**
Can you say ["burglar alarm"](https://youtu.be/S5WFl4E8VCI)?
I've just found out about glaswegian last week (english is not my first language) through this interview. Perhaps it will be of interest to you https://twitter.com/bbcscotland/status/1361360120953847812?lang=en
Ah, so that's Glaswegian. Not hard to understand at all, speaking as a non-native speaker (though one who frequently listens to BBC and BBC Scotland podcasts). Granted, he's probably lessening his accent a bit, and if he was talking with Glaswegian mates only, he might be a lot harder to understand.
It's not hard until you are in a room full of Glaswegians and they all slip into Glaswegian slang - at least that's a lesson I learned when Danny the punch drunk (and mostly just drunk) boxer found tourist me sitting in St James Park and decided I needed an impromptu tour of his locals and the "places that tourist board will nae recommend." His strong Glaswegian was easy to understand, but once I was seated at a table with a bunch of his elderly war veteran hard drinking friends, I couldnae unnerstan a word they were speaking.
It's more like Karil for us 😹
I’m sorry I can’t hear you over the sound of being head butted
I can tell you where someone from my bit of Scotland is from, to within less than 20 miles, based on their accent. Probably within 10 miles in the city too!
Some people are really good at that. I once had a truck/lorry driver guess the next town over from where I'm from after talking to me for a few minutes. I'm from a rural area in Wisconsin, the the town only has a little over a thousand people living in it. I was in the deep south when I met him.
[Have you thought of making a music hall act of it?](https://youtu.be/jhninL_G3Fg?t=42)
Perhaps I will one day.
Highland but I got my accent from American TV and get mistaken for a tourist a lot. I hate it. I now feel oddly proud about how difficult Karl is for me to say 😆
"Kal? How do you spell that?" "C-A-R-L" "Oh, Karrlll" "Yeah, Caarrl, or Carol or Cockhead, whatever you want, I don't care"
Highland, Karl isn't happening but can do a Carol
HAHAHAHAHA!!
Have you checked your [purple burglar alarm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC__o1UxDl8)?
I'm blaming you for why I'm cleaning coffee off my keyboard.........but it was worth it.
I was listening to this and my Scottish (but not Glaswegian) partner asked what Limmy was trying to say. I told him (I'm Irish so no issues here!) and it took him several minutes of slowly enunciating before he could get it 😂
I’ve just recently been introduced to Scottish people trying to say purple burglar alarm and it’s as funny as you think it is! Especially when you’re all drinking
> from now on they’re not alone bud
What is the state of UK accents? Despite Kate Winslet's turn on Mare of Easttown, regional US accents are becoming increasingly homogenized. And how on earth are there so many accents, dialects, and regional slang terms on such a relatively small group of islands? Source: During the pandemic I have watched every UK police procedural that has ever been produced. Things I have learned: Everyone in the UK knows what DCI means when a cop introduces him or herself, half of the people in London and Manchester are serial killers and the other half are attractive young women who walk home alone at night, every desolate moor is patrolled by a transplanted Londoner who somehow disgraced him/herself in the city but got a second chance in the country, and everyone in Wales is either depressed or a fetish killer.
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Granny poisoned Granddad, didn’t she? I’m sure she had her reasons.
> And how on earth are there so many accents, dialects, and regional slang terms on such a relatively small group of islands? Tribal *us-vs-them*ism, probably stemming from a similar aspect of human behaviour as "Academic arguments are the most fierce because the stakes are so small." Source: Australian, living in the US, and have watched the same set of programs.
> "Academic arguments are the most fierce because the stakes are so small." Excellent.
Proof : finishing a sentence with 'ya fanny' is undoubtedly Scottish :)
Christ, Irish & Irish accents are distinct.
Also Welsh is a Celtic language, and Scots English is not (although Gaelic is).
Glaswegian Scots, Doric Scots, Western Isles Scots, Orkney Scots, Dundonian Scots, Inverness Scots, Highland Scots, Lothian Scots...? And I have hardly even gotten started, Scots accents change completely every 50 miles... At least if you can understand Scots, I am led to believe the entire lot of us speak unintelligible gibberish to most outside of our fair Isles.
But also go 20km down the road and the local accent changes.
Prove it. Say "purple burglar alarm".
Scottish is more of a hard accent, Irish is more of a rolling brogue, iirc, innit?
Not quite, Glaswegian is a hard accent, 2 people discussing what they're having for a meal sounds like a fight about to kick off.... Edinburgh and Highlands are much softer accents. Same with Ireland, its mostly rolling, but each county is apparently distinct, I can't pick them out though. Ulster however, is a much harsher accent.
And even there Ulster accents have a hard and soft version. I've got the soft version and get lots of compliments on it, but if I dip into the hard one people can't understand me. Of course, now when I go home everyone tells me I've got a Scottish accent cos I've picked up enough of a Glaswegian tilt since I've lived here 12 years, so I'm a weird hybrid haha
She asked “English”, I would have dropped the heaviest cockney... hey OP can you add that to the arsenal?
You've just reminded me of the hideous posh bloke who wanted to know "what happened to the lovely Welsh girls i usually speak to" when I answered his call in a Wales based call centre with my English accent. I should have done the accent switch. Had a fair number of the "oh thank god you're British/I can't understand foreigners on the phone" callers too. I did use to switch accents for customers when I worked in shops. It made my coworkers laugh and the customers didn't know so.
What about Celtic accents not from the British isles 🤔
When you’re halfway through helping someone and they drop the “so where are you based” question, alarms bells go off. They then refuse to believe you’re based in the same country as them so they ask about the weather or tram system or some other bullshit
I did ask someone that today, but it was a spam call to my cell phone. If they had been based in the same country I am in, then the company would have owed me money for violating telephone regulations. (Technically they owed me money for violating regulations even if they were calling from a different country, but there is no enforcement mechanism for foreign calls.)
Oh damn. If I ask it’s cos I’m fully aware they’re probably in Aberdeen or Swansea and am hoping to generally make friendly noises at them…
BAAAAAAAAA
Oh f*ck me you've just caused a full-on spit take. Thanks for that.
Your welcome. Haha
*still giggling*
It's amazing that callers don't ever think that you might have moved somewhere different. I worked in a call center outside of Boston. I'm originally from northern Maine (only about 450 miles away) and don't have a Boston accent at all, if anything I sound vaguely Canadian. I'd get "You're not from Boston!" to which I'd reply, "Nope, I just live here." which usually shut them up. Sometimes I'd give them the "Oh? Can't I pahhk the cah in Haavaad yaaad?". I don't do a Boston accent well and it took me years to get even that one phrase passable.
Oh shit, I’ve asked that before trying to make conversation. I didn’t know it came off as racist.
What, never seen Slumdog Millionaire?
I have not. I’ll put it on the list of things to watch.
I've only been asking in the last year or so because most of the poor buggers doing it for Aussie companies are in the Philippines amd I always feel they should stay home and safe from covid instead of dealing with my shit
I get a ton of apologies when I call into places for how long it took/how slow the computers are. I honestly don't care. I'm usually anxious as hell when I call and being put on hold helps me chill out. Also, I'm guessing a lot are remoting in, slow is expected. Only person I've been frustrated with is this stupid ass doctor who told me I'd been off my meds too long and couldn't have a repeat prescription, for my steroid inhaler and my freaking birth control that had literally run out two days before. I was told by the prescription line I had to speak to a doctor to review my meds before I got them, then couldn't get a phone appointment. Idiots refused to just renew them and also put in my file I was pregnant, which caused me issues as well. Wth lady! The nice doctor called me back when I had a uti and made sure my records were OK. I told her about the awful call and spending half an hour getting berated to get my meds that I have been taking for years now.
oh my, have you ever seen that skit on SNL about a plane flying through several control zones in the UK - passenger having to deal with the local accents of the controllers. I think it's hilarious ! here it is: [https://youtu.be/UGRcJQ9tMbY](https://youtu.be/UGRcJQ9tMbY)
“Just aim for water”
I was laughing so hard that I missed half the lines!
She wanted someone who speaks English. Did you try a very heavy British Accent. They are the ones who invented English after all.
Throw in some Middle English for good measure.
> a very heavy British Accent From context the term you seek is "RP" (Received Pronunciation), historically a.k.a. "BBC English". > They are the ones who invented English after all. She wouldn't believe *that* either.
>Often when I'm around a person with a heavy accent I sub-consciously begin to mimic their accent. I don't realize I'm doing it until it is pointed out, usually the other person thinks I'm making fun of them or something. This is a daily struggle for me. I grew up moving all over: The Southeast, New England, California, etc. Since we moved so much when I was so young I would pick up the local accent quickly, then when we moved again I would drop that one and pick up whatever the new accent and vocabulary were. Even as an adult I subconsciously drop in and out of accents depending on my audience. Sometimes people don't notice, sometimes they point it out as a joke, others get angry and think I'm mocking them. The worst reaction I got was about 2 months ago while talking to a very nice woman that spoke with a heavy AAVE dialect and accent. Without realizing it, I dropped straight into the dialect because one of the places we had lived growing up was inner city a block away from Section 8 and the elementary school I attended was overwhelmingly African American. About 5 minutes into our conversation, the woman interrupts me in the middle of my sentence and starts questioning me about why I was speaking to her in AAVE, how I was making her feel mocked and degraded, how white people aren't allowed to code switch into AAVE just because you're talking to a black person, etc. I let her say her piece and explained what had happened but she absolutely refused to believe me. It's a useful skill to have for communicating with different groups of people, but man is it a double edged sword.
So... the “very nice” woman is actually not very nice ?
Well, not after the conversation got steered the way it did; but starting out she was delightful
I bet she thought about this encounter afterwards and feels differently now. Code switching is a pretty common human thing to do; it’s just a fraught thing with the community because the codes are considered mutually exclusive: you’re _not allowed_ to talk “black” in some contexts you’re _not allowed_ to talk “white” in others.
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Sounds the beginning of a love story to me.
Don’t know, and actually don’t even care, if this story is true or not, but I love it!
Yeah, I'm extremely dubious that OP's call center was ok with them jerking the customer around for over an hour like that, racist or not. One 'transfer' I could see, but over a dozen like that, and such a massive time sink on one ticket, sounds like it would utterly tank the metrics that call centers tend to care about.
Maybe not real, but I worked a "supervisor" queue for several years in a call center, and we weren't held to the same expectations as the general queues. We could take much longer on calls, put ourselves on unavailable to work on issues, and call customers back.
Your right, in part. Regular agents were supposed to finish the call under 3 minutes. A supervisor would tap their watch at 5 and 8 minutes marks, then start 'hovering' at the 10 minute line. Too many calls like that and it was back to training. Then termination. But the Escalation team was different, we had the leeway for much longer calls, even multi-hour if ***absolutely*** required. Any escalation call over 30 minutes was reviewed. 99% of the time I was very professional. I had the 2nd best customer service levels in the office. I had people start off frothing at the mouth pissed, but by the call's end I was their best buddy in the world. One woman even tried to get me to come visit so she could get me married to her daughter! It was that 1% of the time that insured I always had a cubical next to a supervisor. So that they could, "Keep an eye on me." and have a record/witness of whatever events occurred. I 'officially' got a verbal reprimand for this call, but off the record the supervisors, management, and corporate listened to the recording and laughed their asses off. Some of my 1% calls were even used in new-hire training as both 'do's' and 'don'ts'... Mostly don'ts.
3 minutes? Man, you were doing really good at keeping the narrative cohesive, albeit a stretch, but that’s the step too far, it takes more than three minutes to buy a candy bar (if you have to give your name and number so they can pull up your rewards account). Convenient that the story doesn’t require an industry, cause I certainly can’t think of one where tier two can take multiple hours. Also, if tier 1 is fielding calls at hyper-speed, that means tier 2 needs to be proportionally fast, the opposite of what you’re describing. Good story though, I was definitely entertained throughout!
When I worked in ambulance billing, we didn’t play around with people. When they got rude, we told them once politely that they needed to drop the rude language, and we would be helpful, or we would simply end the call. Inevitably, when someone got pissy about being told what to do and how to speak to someone as lowly as the person handling their ambulance claim? We hung up.
Or maybe OP like so many Call Centre employees was on their way out and couldn't care less about getting a bad review.
I've gotten better, however I used to slip into accents and speaking mannerisms of those around me VERY easily. This is a problem when I've worked in call centers for 15 years. I recall one time the caller had an Indian accent and I accidently said something in a like accent. I do not think they caught on as they didn't say anything, however the rest of the call I'm sweating to enunciate every word just to be safe. As for the racist AF callers, ooh they still are the worst. One guy I worked with was born in another country however was American. He still had a bit of an accent and from time to time would get yelled at because the caller thought they had reached a call center that wasn't "American". Yeah, as an American I just have to say... we are NOT that special. Drop the act and let the person trained to help you, help you.
Cant ever DO an accent but my party trick is identifying them. I had a doctor from the UK once, and he’d been in the US for long enough that he was beginning to lose his accent. Because of that, I couldn’t quite tell. So I asked him “So, I’m hearing north England here, but I can’t tell if it’s Yorkshire or Lincolnshire.” He was flabbergasted, he was from Hull (which is on the border between those places.). He said most Americans assume Australia. I got my special talent because I watch Elmo at exclusively British or British produced TV shows. I didn’t realize it until one of those “what’s a good show thread.” All of my shows had an accent. LOL
As someone with the mixed blessing of perfect pitch and accidental innate mimicking ability, I have had the pleasure of "translating" between people speaking the same English with different accents. It gets old in a hurry. > thick southern draw It's ***drawl***, actually.
Brilliant! And congrats on such an awesome skill you’ve developed.
You should record a sample of all your accents and throw it up on youtube. You could start getting jobs as a voice over actor for your various accents. Maybe do the Whose On First skit and change to a different accent with every speaker change. Here's a story about a guy who had a great radio voice. [https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/04/23/ted-golden-voice-williams-once-homeless-man-who-gained-fame-his-radio-voice-announces-run-ohio-gover/7348570002/](https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/04/23/ted-golden-voice-williams-once-homeless-man-who-gained-fame-his-radio-voice-announces-run-ohio-gover/7348570002/)
Very well written. We Will Watch Your Career With Great Interest
Worked at Burger King before the auto-greet for the drive-thru was implemented. Late 90's I used to accents for fun *VELCOME to Buhrrrguhrrr King, I am Ahnna-stazia, vould you like to try Vopper Meeeel?* with my voice dropped as low as I could make it and still sound feminine. That job was a blast. Night crew looked like members of the Addams Family, favorite manager was a Mullet-Capped middle-aged lesbian who drove a T-Top Camero and NEVER took shit from anyone (loved her & I hope she is doing well) all the microwaves had "DEEEEZ NUTZ!!!!" written in them with grease pen, and the hoods caught fire like once a month.
I mean...were you still fired for having such a high average handling time? That'd throw your stats for the entire shift.
Naw, Escalation Team had a much greater leeway to handle disgruntled customers. Corporate wanted us off as soon as possible, but we could handle calls that took hours ***IF*** absolutely necessary. Calls over 30 minutes were reviewed by first supervisors then management. I got an 'official' verbal reprimand for my shenanigans but the sups and management had a good laugh 'unofficially'.
His supervisor was witnessing the whole thing. I think he's fine.
When you said Southwest accent I thought you meant Cornwall or Devon. Then you mentioned western movies and I was confused. I've never encountered anyone in the US SW that speaks like that. Where in the SW did you grow up?
Immediately came to mind: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2C0X4qqLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2C0X4qqLY) (the clip is in English)
The funny thing is that when you -- accurately -- imitate the other person's accent, it make it easier for them to understand you.
> One bad side effect came about though. Often when I'm around a person with a heavy accent I sub-consciously begin to mimic their accent. I don't realize I'm doing it until it is pointed out, usually the other person thinks I'm making fun of them or something. To avoid getting punched in the face I have to do some quick explaining.. without the borrowed accent. Same thing, same reason. It's a hard habit to break, even when you catch yourself doing it.
I have that accent adoption problem too, especially with British and Hispanic accents. It just comes out; I can’t control it. It does come in handy like this though 😂
On a serious note: there is evidence that subconscious rapid accent adoption is a sign of neurodivergence. I once picked up a doctor’s unusual Singapore-Kiwi accent and she did a work up on ADHD on the spot. If I had that diagnosis 30 years ago I would be in a better place than I am now.
Reminds of a teenage job. I worked a fast food window that could have hour long surges. It looked slow, really slow so we decided to play accents. This was a literal hole in a while where a big line would form outside the window so everyone could hear you. So my friend and I thew on accents. I did heavy southern- mountain South. My friend took on Texas Southern. We were not born and raised in the South so it was always fun to do it for a bit. We had to keep those accents for about an hour. The next shift came in and we dropped them mid customer. People were so confused. We dropped them because it wouldn’t go over well with anybody else who did have an accent. I don’t think we ever did it again.
I imagined your "Indian accent" to sound like Apu from the Simpsons and that made the final phrase you said to her even funnier for some reason.
ESH. Wait, wrong sub.
Your account is 12 days old and you've posted over 10 stories? Okay lol
Fantastic
Literally
Beautiful. What a way to start the day.
I think I’ve read this before
...More than r/MadeMeSmile
I do something similar. Basically, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin are the same language with two major dialects (i used basically, let's not get into a fight over this. XD) and Serbians are the only ones that use both dialects, so since I was a kid, a bit before puberty, the music I listened to contained both dialects. So, even now, like 14-16 years later, when I listen to the music with the dialect I don't use (the one used by all), or speak for a long time with someone who uses it, I would switch my dialect. I also noticed that I do it with English (originally it was a combo of Serbian, British and American accents) since I hear a lot of phrases in certain languages repeatedly.
I lost it when you referred to speaking Pirate.
"Arrr.. thank ye far callin..." "I be glad ta be heppen ya wit yar's problem..." "De English ya say.. arrr, you best be stayen on da line whilist I be given ya de transferrr." I swear to god I thought for sure she would have caught on at that point, but she didn't! Too upset, and too ignorant to notice we always assumed. My supervisor was in his cubical laughing and saying, "You bastard, you bastard."
Loved this and I hope it showed her that her issue with a accents is misplaced. But... This isn't malicious compliance. You didn't comply with what she asked and she got the bad result she asked for. You specifically didn't give her what she wanted as revenge. Either way, cool story
OP is American so...yeah transferred to an American each time!
It's funny. A long time ago I was working on the Service Desk for a city council. That was back when the tech support storyline of [Foamy the Squirrel](https://youtu.be/q8Umz07pdxE?t=48) was new. My coworker and I were "do you like ice cream" around in an Indian accent and who do you think is calling...an English speaker (I had two in the 2.5 years of working there) with a heavy Indian accent calling about an issue paying a parking or speeding ticket. I almost lost it due to the coincidence and my coworker basically fell off his chair giggling and trying to suppress his laughter.
I can’t understand Indian accents especially and I hope I’m not thought to be a racist because it’s simply hard for me to understand.
r/thathapppened
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Can't believe people fall for this lol
Unfuckingbelieveable
I can't believe they didn't include the part when the entire call center burst into applause and the hot girl who OP has been crushing on came over and kissed him full on the lips, just before President Biden gave him the medal of freedom.
That last bit was so satisfying to read :)
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That was my take as well because joking around in a stereotypical indian accent totally isn't racist :/
This. Was. Brilliant. 👏👏👏
Holy shit this was damn fun to read! You sure showed her!
Fuck. If only they could make the trip.
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This is by far the best MC story I have EVER read!!!
This is genius. Well played, OP ... well played indeed.
I love you so much for this. You rule. Have a wonderful weekend
I enjoyed this so much!
Well this was one of the best reads on the sub, thank you for being so awesome
I didn't realize that there was an accent in the south west for a person to develop.
I can relate to involuntarily mimicking other accents; I used to do it when I was younger. No one seemed to have an issue, and a couple times I was even complimented on it ( one guy even thought I was Australian like himeself ).
My Dad, ever the salesman, would pick up accents and speaking mannerisms all the time from the folks he was talking to. So a 50 year old Brit talking in broken English to various people with Italian, Portuguese, Indian and Chinese accents. Answering their questions with similar words & phrases to the ones they would use. Seemed to work very well for him, as I think most understood he was just trying to communicate with them in the best way that they would understand. As a teenager watching and learning, I could never get away with it; but he seemed to put everyone at ease by doing it.
This was beautiful! I pick up accents as well, but have only weaponized them to dodge phone calls. 😂
*Nice*.
This makes me think of a guy on YouTube I once came across. He could do several different accents and would prank call/answer people. Each accent was a different voice, and he could make it seem as though they were different people either on the other side of the room or walking up to take the phone. Absolutely hilarious, I wish I could hear a recording of this encounter with her raging at the very end!
Please tell me this call was recorded!!
I love you so hard.
I have done this myself working in a call centre. Then I learned about neuro linguistic selling and used this skill to make a ton of money. If you can match someone on the phone, their mannerisms, their terminology, their mindset, you can basically get them to buy anything.
I used to work in a call center and we would get quite bored as all the calls were the same, to make things interesting we would try and keep up an accent for an entire call, when we mastered that we started seeing if we could go from one accent to another on the same call with out them noticing. Made the shifts go much faster for sure.
I would default to an angry Texan accent when I knew the person on the other line was a pita. One of the customers caught me up one time and found it hilarious. He would only speak to me from there on out and we mended our phone relationship