COMMENTARY: Accent on accents

Kuala Lumpur (The Star/ANN) - The other day, I switched on my car radio to hear a Malaysian deejay trying to speak with an American accent. He sounded as if he'd stuffed his cheeks full of cotton wool and chopped the tip of his tongue off. He elongated syllables that should have been short and gobbled up the endings of some of his words.

Now this man has probably never been west of Port Dickson before, but there he was trying to give the impression that he had spent a gazillion years in Dallas.

I have lived outside my native Scotland for more than half my life, but I still have a Scottish accent. You could drop me in the Amazonian rainforest to live with the local indigenous people, with no contact with native English speakers for the next 50 years, and I would still emerge sounding the way I do now.

Of course, I'd probably leave behind a tribe of Amazonians who speak English with a Scottish accent, say "wee" when describing something small or young, use the shortened version of vowels (the words "cot" and "caught" sound the same), and drop the G from words ending in "ing".

For some reason, some people find the Scottish accent amusing. I once acted in a comedy that was directed by a Malaysian man who was eager to inject as much hilarity into my character as possible. When he asked me to affect a really strong Scottish accent, I obliged. He thought it was hilarious.

"The audience will love this," he enthused.

"No they won't," I said. "A Scottish person will think it's normal, and an English person will probably wonder why you cast someone with such a strong accent to play the part."

Then there's the recent conversation I had with an Australian woman about accents. She was surprised and hugely amused to discover that there's no difference between the way I say "Luke, it's a cook book!" and "Look, it's a cook book!"

I suspect she telephoned her son after our chat and said: "Look, Luke, did you know that Scottish people pronounce your name as if it rhymes exactly with the words look, cook and book?"

Although I would never attempt to change my accent, some people are eager to get rid of theirs, and not just for the purpose of being on the radio.

Many years ago, while I was still living in Scotland, I worked with a man whose dream was to go to the US for a holiday. He saved up hard for several years, during which time he talked and talked and talked about everything American. Everyone was glad when he finally flew off on holiday to New York City.

When he returned to work, after being gone for one month, he was wearing a cowboy hat and speaking with an American accent. Prior to that holiday, this man had never been out of Scotland and had no American friends. He was teased mercilessly. Some of my colleagues even affected an American accent when they were speaking to him, just to let him know how ridiculous he sounded. Two years later, he emigrated to the US, where he reverted to his old Scottish accent, or so I was told.

I'm not sure why he decided to promote his Scottish heritage in his adopted country. Maybe his original accent made him stand out a little more in the Big Apple. Or maybe he realised that he'd been affecting an accent associated with an undesirable part of the city.

You see, there's often a bit of snobbery attached to regional accents or even accents associated with certain parts of a city. To the untrained ear, one Scottish accent might sound pretty much like another Scottish accent -- the average non-native Scot won't be able to tell the difference between my accent and that of Sean Connery or Ewan McGregor. However, they all sound different to me.

According to the experts, my Edinburgh accent indicates that I'm trustworthy, intelligent and adept at origami. On the other hand, someone with a Glaswegian accent is generally perceived as being unrefined, socially inept and bad at sudoku. If I were to go for a job interview and the only other candidate came from Glasgow, and we were both equally as qualified and attractive and presentable, I would probably get the position based on my accent.

Of course, if I was interviewing for a position in Glasgow, I probably wouldn't get the job if the person hiring was Glaswegian, because my accent would indicate that I'm pompous and a bit of a snob.

Life would be so much easier in the Amazon.