Ah, spring.

[conuly]

The flowers are blooming (achoo!), the grass is growing, and little baby birds are dead all over the sidewalks. You know, nobody ever seems to mention that sign of the seasons, but I'm sure it'd make a fine kigo in a haiku.

***********

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Comments

[conuly]

Ah, I had this convo on DW as well. I'd forgotten uff da was on the list when I posted it - that's the only one I know for sure people really say in real life!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Awell, there ya go. I also say 'boy howdy' and 'ja sure you betcha'- my friend who grew up in Minnesota says them too. Apparently they're common Northern Fly-over expressions from the middle of the last century. I've lived a lot of different places, though, and I pick up idioms the way furs pick up burrs, so I think even the great 'enry 'iggins would find it problematic to suss out my idiosyncratic speech-patterns and Uncanny Valley accent.

Yo, it occurs to me to ask: have you lived in NYC all your life? Do people ask you if you're some different nationality? and if they do, do you think you sound like the nationality they suppose you to be?

[conuly]

1. Since I was three - and my mother grew up here.

2. YES OMG, though the effect lessens the further away from NYC I get. I once had somebody run through a whole litany of places, starting with England and ending with South Africa, and then, when told I grew up in Brooklyn, he asked "really?"

No, I just like shitting you.

2a. My mother has the same problem. And I'm thinking you too? I've heard similar reports from other autistics. (Not that my mother IS autistic, but if she isn't part of the broader phenotype I'll buy a hat just for the joy of eating it.)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, me too, ever since childhood, and my daughter also. People ask me if I'm British; when she was in London the Brits kept asking her if she was Irish. I've surmised it might be because we use correct grammar and enunciate our words, but even so, to my ear neither of us sound like anything but 100% American.

[conuly]

I just posted a new entry which I'm sure you'll see, but it is a well-known thing. Well, I've known it was widespread among autistics for just over a decade, looks like the literature is a bit behind that. (When is it ever not!?) "Developmental foreign accent syndrome".

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Nice to see that at least they acknowledge that it doesn't mean brain damage (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17246-foreign-accent-syndrome-doesnt-mean-brain-damage/).

I attribute the trait to two factors: Aspie literality, and Aspie chameleonism. I think I sound 'British' to a non-Brit ear because I enunciate all the consonants in words, but it's also true that I very easily pick up idiosyncratic speech from others - for instance, I still sometimes pronounce metal as me'al (silent t) because my friend in middle school pronounced it so.

One might well ask to what extent this trait correlates with special interests in literature and language, and/or super-powers in language acquisition, translating and editing.