Bringing the Foreign Home

I have this problem all the time, being on the net, & seeing as how nearly every site I belong to is American. We Australians follow the English form of spelling. I prefer to use english spelling, but have resorted to American spelling for some sites, so there is no confusion. And yes, Aussies do say no worries & bloody a lot!!

That's funny because for a while now every time I type a certain word (can't remember which specifically but it the difference of adding a u) I spell them using the Canadian or British way. I really don't know where the heck I got it from. I always correct it to the American version before I post. I was reading something and I thought they made a typo when they wrote maths instead of math. Apparently in the UK (or maybe even Canada)they say maths where in America we say math.

Fortunately, I don't have the accent which most people from our region speak. But I tend to use 'yaar' a lot with friends ...which actually means 'friend'...but it is used loosely as 'hey'...or more like a punctuation with every sentence.

When I first started working for Americans I still spelled everything the British way. Labour for labor, centre for center, etc. may boss and I had a heated discussion about what he called my terrible spelling. I was pretty angry and explained that was the correct way he said as long as I was being paid in US dollars I must use American English. I have to say that made a lot of sense to me and I wanted earn the dollars so I changed even although many, many years later I still slip back into the British way.

Yeahhhhh, I visited France and now I don't shave. No, just kidding...nothing followed me home.

My mom was like that, wherever we went, she would pick up the accent, and she couldn't shake it. My dad used to tease her, and we all thought it was pretty funny. She picked up a Southern accent while we were on vacation in Arkansas and Missouri, and a New York accent when we went there. All it took was for her to talk to someone for a little while, and she would be talking like them. I think it might have something to do with her ability to learn and speak several different languages easily. She could speak Polish, and various Slavic languages very well, and she picked up some German from customers who used to come into our bar. She had a job once as a crossing guard in a Spanish neighborhood in Chicago, and the kids taught her how to speak Spanish well enough to carry on a conversation.

well i havent gone abroad...never traveled outside my country..so i got no issues on that matter yet..and i havent been relocated far from my original home lol...

I am a born and raised in NY kind of person, but I spent a few years living in the south...and Y'all has followed me around, I just can't lose that phrase. Of course watching Paula Deen on the Food Network has not helped, but she is just so cute, I could listen to her all day. I love a southern drawl, unless I am in a hurry - then I want Yankee speed talking.

I didn't come from english speaking country so it's the other way around. I learned english since I was young but whatever words they use here, I just use them too. I thought they are native speakers so it should be the right thing for me to do. but I found that canadians get me wrong if I said what my husband advised me to say. apparently some words they use in England they don't use them here. he calls the stove, cocker or something like that, it doesn't sound anything like cook-er if you know what I mean something you use to "cook"

Mmmm...you don't say Good-day??--hear that's an Aussie expression...LOL. Some words whether the written or spoken I just have a habit of saying or writing in the English/British way...no particular reason...like here we spell the word theater....I tend to spell it the British way..theatre ...I have a habit of saying "tad" and other words I give the British pronounciation...like the word either...I don't say it eether but "i"ther....also the word aunt...for some reason it makes my skin crawl when I hear someone pronounce it like "ant"

I live in Montreal, Quebec and in 1970, moved to Calgary Alberta. Lived there for 25 years and the one word that gave me away was "A" pronounced like hay but leave off the "H", just about everyone I met asked me if I was from Montreal because they don't use that expression out west, it is also used in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, I think I must have picked it up from my grandmother as she was born in Newfoundland. I have used it all my life and probably will till I pass on.

I was raised in the south, but my Father was from the midwest. He was adamant that I never speak with any accent. He did not have a midwestern accent. He had spent a lot of time getting rid of it in his early years. He always said that people should not be able to tell your level of education or lack of education or where you came from by the way you spoke. Most of my life folks thought I was from someplace up north because I did not have a southern accent. I have had the advantage of living for short periods of time all over the world, and am a bit of a camelion. I can immitate a lot of accents and pick up a lot of word mannerisms. My daughter and I had a lot of fun in the Carribean, because we could speak like the islanders in no time. None of it "sticks". I can "use" it as I like and I do when it is fun, but I just speak as I have always spoken since I was a kid. If a Northerner starts making fun of someone with a deep southern accent and implying that they are ignorant I can turn on just such an accent too and tell them to bug off. High english does not equate "high intelligence". Just another way of speaking. Shalom~Adoniah