like whom do you sound?

[MacCathail]

What a great thread!

My wife was born and raised in Ireland. She has an aunt and uncle immigrated to England many years ago. Her aunt had been there perhaps three months and she sounded like the queen. Her uncle had been there thirty years and he sounded like he'd never left the midlands of Ireland.

My wife has been here in California a good long while and is occasionally told she's losing her accent. I always tell them it's not lost: I've got it. Of course, I don't actually have the accent. What I've picked up are a boatload of phrases and idioms that need occasional translation.

My father once took a course to lose his New York - Bronx, to be precise - accent. But he refused to change the glottal stop in little and bottle. He insisted that's what the double-T indicates. You can argue with him about that if you like, but I don't think it'll do you any good.

Me? Basic southern Californian with a soupçon of South Carolinian and a sprinkling of slightly out-dated Irish idioms. Sounding like nobody famous, and with any luck, nobody infamous either.

Cheers,

-John-