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Tom Hedonist wrote:

I like many different accents, don't think there are any I don't like. Although I found the Northern Australian habit of throwing "but" onto the end of every sentence to be annoying. e.g. "Its a lovely day, but." But, what??? But its gonna rain soon??? You can't just stop halfway through a sentence!

As someone mentioned, the habit of raising the voice at the end of every sentence, so that it sounds like a question, is incredibly annoying, but its not really an accent. As soooo many kids (the world over) seem to be doing it.

Oh, and a few years ago Mrs H & I were sat outside a motorway service station in France, and I was trying to work out what language the two guys at the next table were speaking. Definitely not French, or German. Maybe Italian? No, that's not it. Flemmish maybe? No? Not Dutch. It took me a good five to ten minutes to realise they were speaking English, with really strong Geordie accents

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shake some wrote:

Sorry Karen you,ll have to run by me again , couldn,t understand a word of it It would be the same for me

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Tom Hedonist wrote:

When we went to New York a few years ago, the Black people there couldn't understand a single word I said!

My Mrs is Black, and our accents aren't too different - she's N. London, I'm Essex. The first time it happened I got really annoyed because I thought the bloke perhaps didn't like that we were a mixed race couple, and so was doing it deliberately, as he understood Mrs H perfectly. As the week went on I realised there's something about my voice that makes me unintellegible to Black New Yorkers. Maybe its just too deep for them?!?

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