The Good Doctor and I went over to a friends house to play darts the other evening.
We were “subs” for some of the regulars who could not make it.
There will be another post about the evening in general. This post is about the accents.
There were a few people there with Boston accents. One was mild, one was somewhat middle of the road. And one mom’s accent was particularly pronounced.
Note: The Good Doctor and I are from the “boston area” originally. I grew up there, of parents that grew up there. My accent used to be “wicked strong”. I worked on taming it and, I like to think, that I did a pretty good job of it. [hush, my dear.]
The Good Doctor was already starting to speak when she moved to the area, and her family had none of that accent. She picked up some of it, and was able to discard it much more easily when she moved away.
Anyway, it was startling to me to hear it in the context of a Cairo suburban home. It produced a sort of “worlds colliding” vertigo for a few minutes.
After I recovered, I asked her what part of Boston she was from, and sure enough, the answer was Dorchester. “Doahchestah”.
To hear such a pronounced accent, here, in the middle of Cairo, was entertaining.
My accent came back “wicked fast” and I had to work “hahd” to tame it again.
One of the other folks there, who is friends with the woman with the strong accent, says that she often has to translate for her to other Americans.
She (the woman with the Boston accent) told an amusing story of having to go to a conference at her sons school (an American school here in Cairo, taught by Americans).
The teacher was concerned that her son had a speach impediment and needed speach therapy. The teacher was from the MidWest US and had, apparently, never actually heard a full-blown Boston accent before.
When the mom opened her mouth and spoke with the teacher, the teacher was in a mild state of shock and unable to speak for a few minutes.
After further conversation, it became clear that, while the child may have some interesting speach pathology, there isn’t really a need [as perceived by mom] for therapy.
It did not occur to me at the time to ask the mom to speak some Arabic. That might have been interesting.