The sound of home
The whole accent thing has made me realise that I do listen out for accents—ones from home. Spending a lot of time o.s. has changed my relationship to Aussie accents. I’ve gone from thinking that they’re naff and boring to longing for them.
When I’m out and about and I hear an Aussie sometimes without even thinking about it I start to follow them. My heart beats faster, I get excited, my brain starts staccato bouncing the word home! home! home! home!
It gets me some very strange looks.
I never used to be that way. When I first travelled the last people in the world I wanted to run into were Aussies. Please! I wanted to meet foreignors. All those people out there who were from someplace different than me. I’m still a bit that way. For instance, I don’t know a single Aussie in NYC. After all, I spend half the year at home . . .
So, um, why do I get so excited every time I hear one of my people?
Dunno.
It’s even changed the music I listen to. Like right now I have Missy Higgins on high rotation. But I’m not sure I would love her music the way I do if she didn’t sing with such a distinctively Aussie accent, turning words like “know” and “go” into dipthongs.1 Yum!
In other news, did I mention that the official publication date of Magic’s Child in the US of A is this Friday?
- Actually I think they’re more like tripthongs: Knooohoooow. Stretch those vowels, people! Break them in half! [↩]
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Dan Goodman Says:
My native dialect of English is spoken in a smallish part of the Eastern US (the Hudson Valley and nearby areas in New York State, a bit of Pennsylvania.) When I hear it spoken, I simply notice that the speaker doesn’t have any accent at all. (It’s the same dialect as Rod Serling’s, though we don’t sound much alike.)
March 19th, 2007 at 11:58 PM
Rebecca Says:
dipthongs. that’s called dipthongs? i’m skipping right over my surprise that there’s a name for it and going straight into incredulity at the word “dipthong.” my younger brother would have a field day with that word.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:29 AM
Tessa @ Work Says:
I’m constantly amazed at the ability the aussie accent has to turn single syllable words into two, sometimes, three, syllable words.
Like time. Tiiie-yy-me.
March 20th, 2007 at 4:47 AM
Peter Hollo Says:
Argh, now I don’t know about particular accents being sexy and stuff like that, but geez, two seconds of Missy Higgins would be enough to make me run screaming from the room.
On the other hand, Holly Throsby or Midnight Oil would no doubt make me homesick in a trice…
March 20th, 2007 at 5:47 AM
Faith Says:
Yes, you did mention the publication date for Magic Child in the US is Friday, and thank heavens I get paid on Friday, so even though the play I’m in opens on Friday, I will be at Barnes and Noble on Friday morning to buy Magic Child and read it before I head to Dallas to act like a blithering idiot in a very freaky play.
One of my husband’s mission companions was from Australia. Back in 2000 he and his wife had a 24-hr layover in DFW, and we brought them home with us. It was fun, and I was amused at having to translate a few things for my husband from aussie into american. And I also recall being amused at trying to instruct my younger sister in how to do a british accent for a high school play, and she kept comming out aussie, and she couldn’t hear the difference.
I like accents.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:35 AM
amanda coppedge Says:
Until I moved from Virginia to Florida I didn’t realize how distinctive the Virginia accent is as opposed to other southern accents. I had a professor in college from VA and I loved to listen to his lectures . . . a little piece of home.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:21 AM
stephanie Says:
i am from virginia too and i never thought i had an accent but my friend’s family is from new york and they told me my accent was so thick they couldn’t understand what i was talking about.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:39 AM