Accent inferiority complex?

I have heard that the story about German nearly winning as the national language isn't quite true. I think the idea was that, because of all of the German speakers living in the Valley of Virginia, other parts of the mid-Atlantic colonies, and in particular Pennsylvania, there was a proposal that official government publications be published in English and German, and that was voted down by a single vote. Anyone else? Is that the way you've heard it? We should research it on the internet...

Snopes agrees with you, Misch:

http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.htm

I had an interesting conversation with my fiance. I told him how I was nervous about having to look for a job in England in the future, and how I'd never been on an interview in England before.  He made me promise that I wouldn't try to fake an English accent.  I thought that was strange of him to ask, as I might pick up a few words and speech patterns after living in England for a while, but I would sound absolutely ridiculous putting on a phony English accent.  My fiance said lots of Americans do fake English accents because they think the English look down on Americans, or else they pretend they are Canadian.

I had an interesting conversation with my fiance. I told him how I was nervous about having to look for a job in England in the future, and how I'd never been on an interview in England before.  He made me promise that I wouldn't try to fake an English accent.  I thought that was strange of him to ask, as I might pick up a few words and speech patterns after living in England for a while, but I would sound absolutely ridiculous putting on a phony English accent.  My fiance said lots of Americans do fake English accents because they think the English look down on Americans, or else they pretend they are Canadian.

I think that's a myth.  I've lived here a loonnnnggg time and I know ALOT of expats(some I've known for 15+years) and I've never met anyone who put  on an accent or claimed to be Canadian.  EVER.

Well, I don't know if it's true or not, but it sounds utterly ridiculous. Really, what would I do if my home phone rang, and I answered "Hello" in an American accent, then it turned out to be someone from work, so I had to suddenly change my accent?

All sorts of comic possibilities.

I have never met an expat anywhere that faked their accent unless it was as a joke and I daresay I have a lot of experience with expats.  There are the reported odd balls.. but then I think they are oddballs.

I have met longer term expats in the UK and US that you would be very hardpressed to place their accent simply because they have lived somewhere for a long long time.  I met a Scottish woman on the plane who lived for 40 years in the USA and all you could tell was that she had a faint accent, but it was hard to tell from which nation.  

My mother has an accent and she's lived and spoken English for 45 years this year.

I can have a US southern accent that I go into when talking to southerners, and trust me it happened quite unwillingly.  

I can have a US southern accent that I go into when talking to southerners, and trust me it happened quite unwillingly.  

This is true -- here, I have a pretty neutral US accent, which I think is due to being here -- my Southern intonations have changed and aren't quite so noticeable as they were when I first moved here.  But heck, put me on the phone to my momma and I turn into a big ole suthern dumplin!     It really is just a matter of living somewhere for a while (and yep, a couple of years counts as a while) to unwittingly pick up (or lose) an accent.

My stepdad is a Yankee.  Like a Philadelphia yankee.  But he's lived down in eastern NC for nearly two decades and he sounds just like my native-NC family.  I think being married to a good southern woman did it!     He certainly isn't putting on an accent and neither are most Americans who have lived over here for a while. 

Or I'll just talk like a Valley Girl sometimes and really confuse people.
 

Well, I don't know if it's true or not, but it sounds utterly ridiculous. Really, what would I do if my home phone rang, and I answered "Hello" in an American accent, then it turned out to be someone from work, so I had to suddenly change my accent?

It is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. You're right ... and yet that's what I do. I've done it all my life, so I guess I'm used to it. I was born in the UK to a British mother and a middle Eastern father who was educated to have a British accent. So I started off speaking like a little English girl. We then lived in Mauritius, where I learned how to speak French fluently, but spoke English to my English friends the way I always had. Then we moved to Canada when I was 8. Kids can be cruel, so I learned pretty quickly to speak "Canadian." But I still always kept my English accent at home. And every summer when we came back to visit the UK, I dropped the Canadian completely. After that, it was the US at age 13. Same deal. I adopted a Southern Belle voice at school, but kept my home accent. I've always led this sort of schizo dual accent thing. I know it's crazy, but I still do it. When friends call me from the US, I speak to them in my American accent. Aside from that, I use my good ol' English accent all the time now. Oh, how I wish things were simpler!

My older kids spent every summer in the states until they were 10 and 11.  They dropped the English accent as soon as they stepped on the plane, spoke in an American accent all summer and then started with the English accent as soon as they got on the plane home.  I don't even think they knew that they did it. 

I have never met an expat anywhere that faked their accent unless it was as a joke and I daresay I have a lot of experience with expats.  There are the reported odd balls.. but then I think they are oddballs.

Well... there is Madonna.      

There's no way I'd get away with faking an accent. And why would you want to anyways? I don't see any reason to hide your American accent. Especially with jobs. People would hear my accent and LOVE it. I know my skills got me my job but my accent got me the interview. 

I had an interesting conversation with my fiance. I told him how I was nervous about having to look for a job in England in the future, and how I'd never been on an interview in England before.  He made me promise that I wouldn't try to fake an English accent.  I thought that was strange of him to ask, as I might pick up a few words and speech patterns after living in England for a while, but I would sound absolutely ridiculous putting on a phony English accent.  My fiance said lots of Americans do fake English accents because they think the English look down on Americans, or else they pretend they are Canadian.

I can relate to what you're saying Sweetpeach, and that's exactly the reason I've been so soft spoken here, because of the fear of those who may look down on Americans. I'm finding though that my assumptions about how people view me is a bit distorted. I haven't met anyone yet here in Scotland that's looked at me funny when I talk or has treated me any different than the next person, and most are very patient with me when I have to ask them to repeat something that I didn't understand. I've been trying to listen closely to the dialects I hear and  remember the different meanings for words and I'm starting to use some of them but I know if I tried to sound like I'm English or Scottish I would sound foolish. My future mother in law told me the best thing is to just be myself and people will accept me. It's when you try to be someone you're not when people look down on you. She also said that we're all just people and the fact I'm from America makes no difference, it just means we have so much we can learn from each other and share. My fiance has also told me not to worry about my American accent and doesn't want me to change.  By the way, I was wondering why some Americans here would lie and say they're from Canada? They sound pretty much the same as Americans and how do they know how people here view Canadians?

Really, what would I do if my home phone rang, and I answered "Hello" in an American accent, then it turned out to be someone from work, so I had to suddenly change my accent?

'Hello' sounds just the same in an English accent as it does in an American accent.
(Doesn't it?) 

'Hello' sounds just the same in an English accent as it does in an American accent.
(Doesn't it?) 

My drawn out "hullo" sounds a bit different than my fiance's clipped "hello."

Ever have "off" days w/ your significant other when you just can't seem to understand them? I do. It seems that we have good days and bad, whether he or I mumble more or speak too quickly. I can always tell when he's home after a visit here b/c his accent is so much thicker. So, I am sure mine will change too when I am there for a while and change back if I move/come back to the states.