7-17-02, Lisa Laird
Lisa's Lair
By Lisa Laird
IPS Features
The one thing I despise more than observing myself in a
department store fitting room mirror is listening to my own voice on an
answering machine. Although born in
New York City, I grew up on Long Island. Oddly,
I have a heavier accent than both my mother and father, who lived in the Bronx
and Brooklyn, respectively, until they were adults. I never gave my accent any thought until I heard myself on a
tape recorder as a teenager. I
figured the tape must have been warped; there was no way I sounded like that.
During college, I enrolled in a basic communications
course. One assignment required
that I write a speech regarding any subject I chose.
The professor teaching the course was boring, unfriendly, and most
importantly, not a native New Yorker. Shortly
after beginning my oral presentation, she rudely interrupted.
“The word is TIME, not TYME!” she barked.
In front of the entire class, she criticized not the content or sentence
structure, but rather, my unacceptable pronunciation.
She said everything under the sun except LOSE THE ACCENT. I was a twenty-year-old New Yorker and she was trying to
teach me to talk as if I weren’t. Eventually,
she softened up; thankfully, I passed the course.
Traveling out of state usually presents a dilemma.
While visiting Florida, I’m okay.
There are so many native New Yorkers where my father lives, they sound
just like me; I fit in just fine. California,
on the other coast, has proven to be a problem.
First of all, I have a sister living there who tries her best to rid
herself of any trace of New York evidence.
She absolutely goes out of her way to change her ingrained pronunciation.
Some of the words sound so forced and unnatural; I can’t help but
cringe. My cousins treat listening
to me speak as a hobby. They
ask me to say certain words and then laugh hysterically when I proceed.
At first it was tolerably amusing, but then became severely annoying in
the absence of the initial novelty.
I remember an occasion when I traveled to Delaware with
some friends. While having dinner
at a restaurant, one of them jokingly told the waitress that I was Fran
Dresher’s sister after I ordered. And
that is not the first occasion on which the comparison has been made; I’m sure
it won’t be the last, either. I
smiled and went along with the somewhat plausible notion, although, it’s quite
an exaggeration; I hope.
On another occasion, I recall speaking with a few
acquaintances at a pizzeria. All
of a sudden, a fellow came over to me and asked, with total enthusiasm, “What
part of Brooklyn are YOU from? I’M
from Canarsie!” I hated to burst
his bubble by informing him that I wasn’t from any part at all. However, I told him. He
believed I was lying; truthfully, I wasn’t.
I’ve met many people from all over the country and
have heard various dialects. I
don’t find any sort of comical amusement, nor, do I give the subject much
thought, if any. We each sound the
way we do because of who we are combined with where we’re from. Regional accents aren’t “good” or “bad.”
They are what they are, part and parcel of the countless unimportant
differences amongst people. Unfortunately, this is another one of the various ways to
ridiculously divide an already ridiculously divided population.
Remember, it is what we say, rather than the way we say
it that matters. If actions speak
louder than words, then words speak louder than accents.
Even mine.
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