meeting people from England in the US...

[Dafydd Owain Hughes]

..is it just my experience, but does anyone else born in Wales who meets an English person in the States have to go through that awkward moment when they call you a "sheep shagger", then laugh like they were the first person ever to say it, and expect you to take it with a "what yo old boy!"? Just wondering, because a couple of my best friends over here are English; but other English people who I have met randomnly (we have a lot of tourism from the UK down in Charleston, SC) think this is absolutely okay to say to any Welsh person they meet?

[The Chicago Tafia Welsh Society]

Aye thats true..

I tell you what is a bit odd though, I am sure it has happened to everyone living over here, Americans seem to find it perfectly acceptable to repeat your accent back at you.

It's not mockery or anything, theirs no malice involved and i'm used to it now, but every now and then if im feeling mischevious i'll call them out on it by saying "do you do that at Dunkin Donuts to the Pakistani's too"....

[gaabi]

Yes, yes they do! And we do it to each other, too. I go to the East Coast and New Yorkers start doing an exaggerated West US accent when they hear me and if I am so unfortunate as to say "dude" or "cool" in front of them they all roll on the ground laughing and doing it themselves. I had an office manager from Kentucky at a job in Virginia and she actually said to me, in front of other people, that my accent and vernacular were very affected, annoying and passe' and that I needed "to realize that it's time to move on."

[Dafydd Owain Hughes]

That's awful. I think that local accents are a great piece of each of our history's; living in the south I hear some really thick dialects which I think are great. NZ'ers are really down to earth, good people on the whole, as are the English etc. I just think it's a bit of an Englishism to call us sheepshaggers on first meeting.

[gaabi]

Yeah, I just went basically "I have heard you" and went on about my life and assumed that she had led some sort of extremely unfortunately sheltered life and hadn't learned to really interact with other people, haha!

I LOVE accents, I love to listen to them and try and guess where people are from, to hear regional variation and fusion accents - the best one I ever heard was a woman from Georgia who married a South African and lived in Australia - wow! Like music. I never understand people who bitch about that - we've had an influx of NYers to Portland and they complain about EVERYTHING and how it's not NY but I love going and finding those different regional things - customs, accents, dress, beliefs, cuisine, culture, all those things. It bolsters my personal theory that there is no "American" culture, there are many.

I had a roommate from Glasgow, Scotland, and she could do any UK accent and I could do a bunch of US and we'd take turns leaving the weekly greeting on our answering machine in different accents, with appropriate background music.

[gaabi]

I've said this to Ceri but we in the US have "British envy".

We worship Brits to an extent. The unconscious stereotype is that British people are more intelligent, better educated, more civilized, have better taste and know better than we do, and on the bad side that British men are all effeminate and all Brits are cold and passionless. I'm sure this comes from the inception of our country, that here is the wild frontier and the UK "the motherland" from which all good things come.

Until about the 1960s, the thing for American actors was to have English vocal coaches and you can hear this especially in films made in the 30's and 40s, in the voices of Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Vincent Price and MANY others, that was just the "right" way to talk. Even today it cracks me up to introduce Ceri to people and see this thing come over their faces when they hear his voice, like an enchantment, it's very funny. And he can be standing there in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, swilling a beer out of the can and talking about sheepshagging or beans on toast and they'll say to me later, "he's so cultured!"

[gaabi]

And of course, Romans in American films are almost always played by Brits. When we're doing the cradle of western civilization, everyone should have British accents.

[Katie]

I actually often do end up mirroring my foreign friends' accents and speech patterns when I've been around them a lot. Especially if we've all had a bit too much to drink. ;) It's completely unconscious, and just a byproduct of being good with mimicing accents. Not sure why it happens, but it can be both useful, fun and terribly annoying.

Although I never do it to mock people to their faces, unless I'm deliberately trying to tease a friend.

And regional accents are loads of fun! I'm always trying to place people by their accents, and have gotten pretty good with many US accents and some Irish ones. Gotta do some "research" to figure out the Welsh accents, though! ;)

[gaabi]

Yep, I love that! I met a guy yesterday at a restaurant - speaking Spanish in the kitchen with other Spanish-speaking staff - they all looked Mexican but his accent made me go "bing! SoCal!" and sure enough, I asked him where he was from and he was from San Diego, speaking Spanish with a Southern California twang! He was annoyed when I told him that and said no, you can only hear that when I speak English and the waitress, who was from Guadalajara, said no, you speak Spanish with an American accent. It was wild to hear and recognize that sound in another language.

[Ian Price]

Personally I'd rather get on with people from which ever culture they come from. However, because many English people have a massive insecurity problem and inferiority complex it's always best to have a retort or crisp rejoinder at the ready - just in case. Telling them to go back to Germany where they came from. That usually brings on a Porterhouse Blue - or remind them that they are in fact the illegitimate sons of the Roman hordes if a similar effect is required.

What really bugs me though is the media which tries to play up national differences as if we on this rock in the North Atlantic were some how genetically different. The Celts and Saxons along with Jutes, Angles,Picts and in these days people from all over creation live here. Were 60 Million on an island that would comfortably fit into Lake Superior. There are idiots like Anne Robinson - a woman of infinite unimportance who say things like " The Welsh! What are they for? Then you get real morons on radio stations like Talk Sport who delight in trying to belittle Welsh sportsmen usually to the embarrasment of the English people their trying to lure into a racial slur.

[Seraffa]

I think it's all disgusting, but ...... I would think a ram far better company than an englishman......I wouldn't have to put up with the accent.....;)

[dave martin]

have nothing against the english every welsh backyard should have one

[Dafydd Owain Hughes]

I think the biggest think I dislike is the fact that when an English person says 'sheepshagger' they act extremely pleased with themselves and witty like they were the absolute first person on earth that has ever used the term...the only person I have ever heard of that performed any act of beastiality where I grew up was an Englishman high on acid that got caught in a pig-sty, was arrested and henceforth held in the cells in Amlwch overnight, later charged with cruelty to an animal and an obscene public act.....perhaps the english could now be deemed pig/hog-lovers/shaggers; I just feel sorry for the pig........and whoever ended up with it's bacon during a morning fry up;)