The Accent

I'm going to miss the variety of accents I was able to enjoy listening to in England! In Canada we tend to think there are only two accents - the Queen's English and Cockney. There are hundreds of different accents. The way people drop consonants is one of my favourite things (for example, "kettle" with no "t" sound). I recorded a few video clips to share a glimpse of my English life. (Have patience - some of the files might take a few minutes to load.)

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Emma saying, "Oh my word," a phrase that often escapes her lips and now I say it all the time.

Emma was horrified to discover that I had idea who Dr. Who is. I had heard the name numerous times while I was in England but I've never seen the show or heard anything about him beyond his name. Emma decided to enlighten me and I videotaped her explanation of Dr. Who. She scares me sometimes.

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On my last night in England I played a game with friends where we gave verbal hints to our team to get them to guess the word written on a card. A prime opportunity to record a couple of voices.

Emma getting her team to guess a few words. My favourite was the last word when she tried to get her team to guess "Essex". You'll hear the word "chav" a couple of times - this is a slang term for the teenage guys who wear big baseball caps, imitation Adidas tracksuits, gold chains, and swagger around town like they own the world but don't care about anything or anybody. I guess there are a lot of chavs in Essex.

Jess getting her team to guess a few words. Jess has one of my favourite accents - she drops consonants all the time and she also does a pretty decent imitation of an American accent (sadly, I didn't capture this skill on film).

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Sarah is from south-west London but she has lived in Eastbourne for a few years. I recorded this clip on my birthday after we had afternoon tea - we were standing at the bus station. She loves to imitate my accent and the story about the title of "Little Britain" is true.

"There's a hilarious television show called 'Little Britain' and..."
"Is it actually called 'Lit'o Britain' or is that just your accent coming through and it's called 'Little Britain'?"
"What?"
"I mean, is the title of the show 'Lit'o Britain', as in 'l-i-t-apostrophe-o', in order to be funny, or is it called 'Little Britain' and you're just saying it with your accent?"
"No, no, no, it's 'Little Britain'!" (said with emphasis on the 'l')

Oh, the confusing delights of a common language!