Monday, August 8, 2011

Dis, Dat and udertings!

Ok Soap box time!

I'm French, well Acadian French to be exact. I'm proud of my heritage. But one thing that drives me to distraction is people making fun of my accent. I work in a completely English environment. For years I have worked hard to hide my accent. Most days I can get away with it. But NO MORE!!! I'm letting it all hang out!

Two reasons behind this change of attitude.

First one...one of our regular contractors came in the other day and I slipped up. I let a dis go by. Blair's a nice, funny guy and on cue he starts, "Oh it's dis, is it?". I was having a bad day, so I gave him "The look".

So this time he actually looks at me and says, "You know, I shouldn't be making fun of your accent. At least you can speak two languages, I can't. You should be proud of that."

You know what....he's right!

Dave and I worked hard to make sure J. pronounces his English words properly. We started with the books of the Bible. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians works really well.

But now I honestly don't care if he's got a French accent or not. Be proud of it!

The second reason is...that most English people can't speak properly in their own language. So if they can't speak their mother tongue properly, I'm doing pretty darn good speaking both well, with an accent, thank-you-very-much!

At work all day I hear..."My lag hurts" hmmmm....I always thought that a lag pertained to a bolt or a screw, not an appendage. Or a verb as in, "I lagged behind."

How about..."I'm going upstair." There's more than one!!! You are going up a flight of stairs or you are going upstairs!

My favourite is "Yes sir, it's sold by the each." For Pete's sake! It's sold by the piece!

It's film not filem.

It's pretty near here...not pertn'r.

So people, before you start ragging on my way of speaking, think about how you speak first.

Ok, I'm stepping down now.

Have a Blessed day.
Lisa

3 comments:

  1. Right on sister! Those must be Nova Scotians with those crazy words. I lived in Halifax for five years and couldn't get over how many different NS accents I heard.

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  2. I agree Lisa! You should be proud to speak 2 languages! I wish I did.

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  3. I agree too! When I moved from Ak to WI, I got some flack for how I say "bag" I rhyme it with sag, hag, tag. They don't say it that way here!

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