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Blogs by Larry M. Lounsbury
Bilingual 1/29/2007 8:40:20 PM
A Scottish Lass in America.Another funny blog from my wife.Thanks Caroline! Here I go again, but it seems lately there are humorous things happening. The latest involves my accent. I'm originally from Campbeltown, Scotland, but I left there 27 years ago. For whatever reason, I still have a Scottish accent...mixed in with American, so I guess maybe it sounds a little bit strange. It's weird as any other Scottish person I know that lives in this country, speaks with a completely American accent. Some of these people have been here for a lot less time than I have, and still sound American. So...I'm not sure if I'm just different, or they're purposely making themselves sound American. I don't force myself to sound either way...I am who I am. One thing I do know is that when I'm on the phone with my mother the Scottish part comes out strong, again I'm not trying to, it just happens that way. Same thing when I go back there for a vacation, I start of New Yorkish and then end up getting more Scottish as the vacation progresses. The point I'm trying to make is that even after all these years here, there are people who will give me the weirdest looks when I open my mouth. At first when this happened, I really tried to speak "American" but I believe that only made the situation worse. It's like a drunk trying to act like they're sober...don't bother, it just isn't possible. After that plan failed miserably, I got angry. Why should I try and change my accent? American people won't try to change the way they talk if they go to Scotland, and anyway, I really don't understand why it is so difficult for people here to comprehend what I'm saying. So, I have a little accent, but I hear a lot of people who are, to me at least, much more difficult to understand than I am. I don't try talking one way or the other, what I do try and make a conscientious effort to do is not use any slang Scottish words, and believe me, I have many. One of my daughters has a friend that works in a food establishment that I go to, probably about once a week. She has just started working there, and my last two visits have been quite funny. She knows who I am and will try conversing with me, but I know she doesn't understand probably half of what I say, as she will give me this blank look and then respond with something totally irrelevant to what I have just said. This also happened at our local Wal-Mart. I had gone to get paper for my printer. Normally I know exactly where it is, but they were in the process of doing a complete remodeling, so nothing was where it should be. After searching for a few minutes, I decided I would ask one of the "associates" as they call them. "Excuse me, could you please tell me where the printing paper is?" I asked. "The what?" she said. "I'm looking for printing paper." Another blank stare. By now, I'm getting annoyed, but ask politely again. "Where has the printing paper been moved to." Again she responded "the what?" I'm thinking to myself, keep calm, keep calm. I'm a very polite person, and actually quite quiet, but situations like these make me very annoyed. "You know, printing paper" I said, raising my voice a little. "That white stuff you put in your printer. As an added bonus for her I even spelled it out. "P.R.I.N.T.I.N.G P.A P.E.R." "Oh, that's right over there" she said and takes off merrily on her way. Aaaaarghghh!!! Now I'm on a mission. If you think I'm hard to understand now, just wait. So I tell my husband that I'm going to become totally Scottish again, to hell with it. Only problem, no matter how hard I try I can't. I even went so far as to put my best Scottish voice on our answering machine, but it was a disaster, and made me cringe every time I heard it. Some of my daughter's friends liked it though and would intentionally call just to hear it. It stayed on there for a few weeks until one day my mother confronted me about it. "What's wrong with your answering machine?" she asked. "It's me being Scottish." "For god's sake, take it off" she said in a huffed voice. She never said anything else, but I really believe she thought I was making a fool of Scottish accents, which I obviously wasn't. It's actually in a way quite sad, as I don't want to lose my accent, I'm proud to be Scottish, but I'm still going to try and get it back a little stronger than it is now, at least enough for my answering machine
