wandering ponderings

[theladyrose]

"I hope you woke up this morning not regretting anything...heck, I hope you woke up without a hangover at the least!"

As much as I appreciate my friends' birthday wishes, why is it that people like to imagine what I'm like drunk? Or assume that I would get drunk in the first place, or perform other sketchy activities? I simply don't understand it. I have nothing against a little political subversion, although it's never anything destructive or harmful, and I don't consider myself asexual, but that's a different story.

People have been commenting lately that I have a British accent and/or British mannerisms, although Ellie repeatedly denies this. I don't get that either to be honest; I personally think that I sound rather American, and I've lived in this country for quite some time now. Occasionally I do sense a couple of vaguely trans-Atlantic phrases slipping into my speech; as I've said before, when I was younger my mother was beginning to lose her BBC announcer accent as I started to speak English. Kids used to give me strange looks in early elementary school whenever I spoke so I consciously tried to eradicate my accent and sound more American like everyone else. Perhaps in recent years I've been reversing this trend as many of the people with whom I keep in contact on a regular basis live across the pond. Perhaps it's my closet snobbish anglophilism coming out? I generally avoid using British spellings, though.

I am now the proud gardien of a garden gnome whom I have dubbed Jean. Jean Gnome, get it? It makes more sense when you say it out loud. For the record, the nickname was Ellie's idea. I am going to take a picture of him some time and you can all rejoice in his kitschiness.

I can't wait for my latest shimpment of soundtracks to come in; there's Michael Giacchino's Alias seasons one and two, Bernard Herrmann's North by Northwest (the recording not conducted by Laurie Johnson, composer of Dr. Strangelove and the Avengers series) and Marnie, and another one whose name I've temporarily forgotten. I'm starting to binge on Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann), Goodbye, Lenin! (Yann Tiersen), and the Incredibles (Michael Giacchino); I think I've been listening them too long in a row. I'm starting to lose my touch as I branch away from the jazzy swing experimentalism of 60's caper and spy films in identifying clips; it took me about twelve seconds to identify a five second clip from Burt Bacharach's Casino Royale (the 1967 version, not the 1954 American TV movie). If I've seen a film within a six month period and have heard the soundtrack twice, I need a three second clip to identify the composer, film, and track name in five seconds. It's a strange little gift of mine that comes in handy to quash sexist film score reviewers' doubts about me; it also makes me sound like I actually know what I'm talking about!

Comments

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

I do know what you mean, and you definitely know a lot more about accents than I do :) *coughs* Ummm, my spoken grammar is OK, but hardly proper all the time. I guess it's generally assumed that if you're just the slightest bit familiar with British politics and educational system, you have to be from there. But seriously, how many Brits say "dude"?

[(Anonymous)]

A Brit saying dude would actually be funny. Your grammar is better than most, trust me. Also, I doubt that most people know how familiar you are with British politics and the educational system; it's not as if you go around talking about it all the time. Who tells you that you have an accent anyway?
Random note: you know what I'm thinking of right now? That joke about the dumb American in the resturaunt "in the groove man, in the groove"

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

That's probably true. Both Jen and Olivia kept joking about my weirdo English-American accent during our math study sessions, and most of the people in my CrWr class claim that I use a lot of British expressions...

You must tell me that American joke!