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Voices and accents

There are certain tones of voice or accent that just make it impossible for me to connect with the content. I just cannot take away anything from what they say.  Their voice just winds me up and all I can think about is how much of a waste of time it is going to be just listening to them.  That, of course, makes it a self-fulfilling prophesy. 

There's a guy I am enduring on the phone and he's just going wa wa wa like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoon.

It's entirely clouding my respect for him. he has stolen hours of my life. I have no recollection of anything he's said in the last six months.

Conversely, there are some voices that are so beautiful and delightful to listen to that the words just lock in. I just connect and learn.

The former are the Excel Spreadsheets of the human race.

The latter are the Rembrandts.

 

Leeds.  Awful, awful accent.  Automatically makes the speaker sound thick and ignorant (and yes, I realise that that is a terribly ignorant comment). 

 

But Bristol is pretty bad too.  Shrill accents from around Bolton are horrific.  Essex is terrible. 

I realise that.  Other ones which make me tune out are Singaporean accents (sounds like a bird trying to swallow a big marble) and Bostonian (I'm sure they just put it on on purpose).  Very dense Indian accents are also very very hard to follow.  There must be others, but those are the most obvious candidates. 

There is a female broadcaster on a local radio station I sonetimes listen to who goes into a sqeaky high pitched whine whenever she is excited, which is all the time, I imagine dogs with bleeding ears and wine glasses shattering across the county, you have to switch station.

i cannot fathom how she has a job on radio.

and the middle aged lady in my gym who sounds like minnie mouse, I mean, how can her husband stand it?

​​​​​conversely, a well-educated Greek or Indian speaking English in an attractive plummy accent is like cream coating your mouth, rich and delucious.

There are words that also signal to my brain that I must stop listening. These are

"like" repeated frequently instead of breathing and thinking

", yeah?" (with upward inflection) and its toxic older cousin "do you understand?" at the end of a factual statement.   Yeah... I understand you are a aunt.

 

 

 

Add "literally", "sort of", "kinda", "I mean", "bud" and "mate" to that list. 

 

 

Minkie - having never had the inside of my mouth coated with creamy substances, I'm going to have to take your word for it.

American TV series from about 10 years ago. One of the characters was an Indian geneticist who spoke like that. (The actor is apparently American though.) 

There is a touch of er, difficulty, with him.  I think he's better read than listened to or watched. But the substance is more coherent than most politicians of his age.

 

I used to work with a charming chap from Thailand who used the wrong consonant in every syllable of every single word he spoke.    He was a lovely person but listening to him speak made my hair stand on end.

 

 

There's a Spanish guy I speak to regularly who thinks his English is more fluent than it is, and how he creates fluency is by joining up all the words in a sentence by using a random vowel in between words which start with a consonant and then inserting the non word "ang" into the sentence as a form of continuum. For example

David eh is a going to eh Barcelona ang Madrid ang he eh is a eh due eh to deliver an ehpresentation on ehmoneylaunderingangfinancialehregulationangthingsehlikethat

I have a Spanish language tape where the narrator is an excitable , high pitched Irish girl, and the Spanish is spoken in a low, doomladen voice by a Spanish woman who is probably still upset about Franco

Impossible to listen to 

"Very dense Indian accents are also very hard to understand."

Agreed. Spanish also awkward, too many vowels.

Other than that though, I can't think of any particularly annoying accents. You lot are too irritable. 

A rare moment at which we must disagree on comedy mutters.  Broadbent's career defining moment for me clive.

even in the episode you choose I think the 'ein zwie, ein zwie' bit is funnier than laurie

There is a touch of er, difficulty, with him.  I think he's better read than listened to or watched. But the substance is more coherent than most politicians of his age.

He certainly seemed to have a better understanding of legal issues than most other ministers I have dealt with.

It's a wonderful moment wang but most of that is other people... I think the funniest part of that episode is the "here we are, just us girls" bit with egburts mum.

Does anyone have a similar issue with the way people laugh?  Something this morning reminded of going on a date with a lady who was lovely in every way until she laughed and at that point any attraction just evaporated.

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