phases that make me want to smack someone

[Lady's Human]

1) What, praytell, do y'all consider a "middle European" accent? There are a lot of countries, languages and dialects (hence accents) in the center of Europe.

2) Castillian Spanish accents are extremely rare in the United States. Y'all should watch on 'o them thar formerla one races to hear a true spanish (as opposed to hispanic)accent.

3) Which Mexican accent do you find offensive? There are several. I had several employees from Mexico, and I had one who spoke to me and translated the others for me. I could understand Miguel, but couldn't understand three of his compatriots (also from Mexico) as they had a different accent to their Spanish. I almost got into an altercation with them one day because of a misinterpretation, after which I relied on Miguel.

[Karen]

The accent thing doesn't just apply to Spanish-speakers speaking English, that's for sure. I have a friend from Argentina, who, when we first met, asked "You speak Spanish?" When I replied, "No, Francais - mais un petit peau," he replied, "Ah, no Francais, me. You speak Mexican?" Clearly to Argentinians, they speak Spanish, Mexicans speak their own language.

There's pretty much nothing folks normally say that make me want to smack them. Fight the urge to correct them? Sure. (In instances that I DON'T correct them that is.) Smack anyone? Nah.

[caseysmom]

I actually enjoy accents, my daughter has a friend from the south that says "yes mam" to me all the time, I think its endearing.

[Cincy'sMom]

The accent thing doesn't just apply to Spanish-speakers speaking English, that's for sure. I have a friend from Argentina, who, when we first met, asked "You speak Spanish?" When I replied, "No, Francais - mais un petit peau," he replied, "Ah, no Francais, me. You speak Mexican?" Clearly to Argentinians, they speak Spanish, Mexicans speak their own language.

There's pretty much nothing folks normally say that make me want to smack them. Fight the urge to correct them? Sure. (In instances that I DON'T correct them that is.) Smack anyone? Nah.

I don't know why, but this reminded me of a story. We had a Euchre (card game) tournament through work as a fund raiser. A friend of mine brought a couple they are friends with, and the woman was not orginally from the US. We would change tables and partners on the outcome of each game. At one table, the freind started speaking Spanish. One of the guys at her table was getting impatient, wanting to play. He told her you can speak English, or your native language, I don't care, let's just play.

She asked him why he thought Spanish was her native language. He said, well, you have an accent, and you are darker complected. She let him dig himself a nice little hole with the conversation. Then said, by the way, I'm not Hispanic, I'm from Romania, I just teach Spanish!

One thing that took me some getting used to is the pronunciation of Aluminum. In our little corner of the world, it is generally pronounced
A-lum-in-um. The chemistry manager at work always says Al-u-min-ium, which I believe is a more European pronunciation(?). Totally confused me what he was talking about!


There are phrases that I find unusual, or pronunications that make me heisitate, but certainly nothing that makes we want to slap anyone!!