Laughing at stupid foreigners.

[alicat]

I was at Sao Paolo airport when a Yank asked loudly 'Does anyone speak Spanish round here?' I volunteered my services and was able to find out for him that the airport had no hotels. I then mentioned he might like to ask for a Portuguese speaker for ther rest of his stay in Brazil.

 

[Ganymede]

Very much a product of Vaudeville. Due to central location between Chicago and St. Louis, as well as the large number of theaters, Peoria was a testing ground for acts, due to its audiences' tendency to mirror theatrical tastes encountered elsewhere in the US. Still a hotspot for product polling, though not as much as before. I think they do a lot of polling in Boise, Idaho now. The old Madison Theater is still working, although vaudeville is long gone. The Madison was built as a theater for stage productions, and still had it dressing rooms and such intact when restoration interest began in the 1970's Other theaters did not, although the Palace had a cafeteria in the basement of the theater, IIRC. I do not recall vaudeville in Peoria, my father did, and believed it was still playing through the 1930's.

Thanks for all that info John - I'm less ignorant now! Fascinating stuff.

 

[Bobby Mhor]

Very much a product of Vaudeville. I do not recall vaudeville in Peoria, my father did, and believed it was still playing through the 1930's.

Surely it started again when Obama represented the State

 

[MontyVeda]

I was asked in the USA where i came from... I said the UK and was immediately told that i have a Swedish accent (tha's news t'me!)... I mentioned this to my uncle and cousin (also American) and they agreed, I apparently have a Swedish accent. No one in my home town has mentioned this before, and Lancashire's a long way from Sweden (unless you're American).

 

[Saluki]

I once overheard a fat loudmouth cockney woman trying to buy a tin of baked beans in a campsite shop in Spain. "Biked beans!" she demanded, with a certain lack of elegance. The shop girl tried her best, and helpfully profered up a tin of haricot beans. "Not 'em, biked beans!", she said, a little loader. The girl tried offering some cannelini beans, with the same response, just a bit louder still. Almost unbelievably, the helpful shopgirl seemed to have an inexhaustable supply of different tinned bean variants. Flageolets, string beans, etc, etc, and kept offering them up helpfully and politely. By now the cockney woman was getting really wound up and even ruder. "NO! I don't bladdy believe this! I said biked beans, not 'em" she continued, expecting that surely everyone would sell Heinz beans in tomato ketchup. It was all getting remarkably like the Monty Python cheese shop sketch, and I couldn't wait to see if they had any mung beans, soya beans or edamames. Sadly I got served by the other assistant before they got that far into the sketch and I never found out how it finished. at the checkout I pretended not to be British.

I had a similar experience with some bloke in a Spanish shop trying to buy salt. Yelling at the poor girl wasn't getting him anywhere so I asked, quietly and politely, if I could help him. He asked if I spoke "this bloody awful dago language" (charming man that he was) and I took him to the salt. It was clearly marked 'sal' and was between the pepper and the vinegar so I figured that I had a fighting change of it being right.
Lady on the checkout was very grateful to me and asked if I was English, I told her that I was Scottish. Which is technically true, I was just brought up in England plus a smattering of other countries.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Surely it started again when Obama represented the State

No sign of it starting yet, but the mayor is working hard on it.
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/peoria-mayor-twitter-parody/

 

[vernon]

[QUOTE 3139501, member: 259"]Try learning to speak Dutch in the Netherlands. Everybody, from policemen to popstars, to beggars in the train station, speaks perfect English and launches into it as soon as they hear a hint of an English accent.[/QUOTE]

Try speaking anything other than German to pretend not to understand ten year old Roma beggars in Berlin and you will be replied to in perfectly good, Spanish, French or English. The school of life sometimes has the upper hand in language learning.

 

[Donger]

I was asked in the USA where i came from... I said the UK and was immediately told that i have a Swedish accent (tha's news t'me!)... I mentioned this to my uncle and cousin (also American) and they agreed, I apparently have a Swedish accent. No one in my home town has mentioned this before, and Lancashire's a long way from Sweden (unless you're American).

I'm trying my hardest to imagine what a Swedish/Lancastrian (Sven Dibnah) accent might be like, but with no success so far.

 

[MontyVeda]

I'm trying my hardest to imagine what a Swedish/Lancastrian (Sven Dibnah) accent might be like, but with no success so far.

As far as i can tell, it's a North Lancastrian accent through and through... but maybe across the pond, Northern Europeans speaking English may all sound quite similar. It was when my Uncle Joe confirmed it that threw me... as he's a Lancastrian too, although he's lived in the States since the early 1960s.

 

[Arch]

When we still lived in Belfast, a friend of my Mum went to Dublin for a weekend with her husband. She admitted afterwards that she'd commented to him that "this taxi company has a lot of cabs!"

"Which company?"

"Garda!"

 

[Spinney]

As far as i can tell, it's a North Lancastrian accent through and through... but maybe across the pond, Northern Europeans speaking English may all sound quite similar. It was when my Uncle Joe confirmed it that threw me... as he's a Lancastrian too, although he's lived in the States since the early 1960s.

I went to California for a month many years ago - folks asked me if it was Australia or New Zealand I was from. It didn't seem to enter their heads that I was English.

 

[marzjennings]

I went to California for a month many years ago - folks asked me if it was Australia or New Zealand I was from. It didn't seem to enter their heads that I was English.

I've lived in Texas for almost 12 years and folks still mistake my Cornish accent for anything other than English, usually Australian, sometimes New Zealand. What makes it worse is my family back home think I'm sounding more Texan every time I call home.

 

[nickyboy]

I've lived in Texas for almost 12 years and folks still mistake my Cornish accent for anything other than English, usually Australian, sometimes New Zealand. What makes it worse is my family back home think I'm sounding more Texan every time I call home.

I'm from North Lancashire (and thus sound Swedish apparently) but I was mistaken for an Australian when I was in California

I'm working with a Texan who has lived in Dundee for the past 10 years. Now that is one strange accent

 

[nickyboy]

As far as i can tell, it's a North Lancastrian accent through and through... but maybe across the pond, Northern Europeans speaking English may all sound quite similar. It was when my Uncle Joe confirmed it that threw me... as he's a Lancastrian too, although he's lived in the States since the early 1960s.

As a fellow N Lancastrian (although lapsed) I can confirm that you sound nothing.....and I mean NOTHING....like someone Swedish speaking English.

Unless you try to do the voice of the chef off the Muppets

 

[marzjennings]

I'm from North Lancashire (and thus sound Swedish apparently) but I was mistaken for an Australian when I was in California

I'm working with a Texan who has lived in Dundee for the past 10 years. Now that is one strange accent

A strange accent indeed and what makes it funny is when a Texan will look you square the eye and proclaim, 'Well I don't have an accent.'