People 'doing' your accent

[Topofthemornintoya]

If you live outside Ireland, do people do your accent after you speak?

I live abroad and work with expats from many English speaking countries. From time to time, I will be speaking and the other, non Irish, person will repeat what I said in my accent. Maybe I'll say 'do you know if there's paper in the photocopier?' And someone will imitate me and put on my accent saying 'paper in the photocopier!' like it's hilarious.

I never know how to respond because my first thought is 'oh, you've noticed I speak differently to you and you think its comical. Right' but I never really know how to articulate this. I always feel like our conversation is pretty much over when this happens. I can't explain why.

It never feels like a compliment and I normally respond with blank silence as I don't know how I'm supposed to say. The other person will then note the lead balloon and say 'ooh I just love your accent!'.

I spoke to another expat (but not Irish) friend about this. She hasn't done it to me but said that everyone has an accent and a bit of teasing about accents is ok and nobody means any harm.

I couldn't put my finger on why it annoyed me so much. It used to happen a lot when I lived in Emlngland and it always felt very 'othering' so maybe I am overreacting and it's my issue.

Does it happen to you and do you mind? Am I being very over sensitive? It always makes me feel self conscious. As I said, I've worked with a lot of people from other countries. Scottish, Welsh, English, Kiwis, Australians, Americans, Canadians, Indian people and people from African countries. I would never dream of parroting something back to them in their accent because I found it funny. It's rude, isn't it? What do you think?

Yes, I agree OP. I have had some very rude and hurtful comments over the years about the way I speak.
It's probably one of the reasons behind my massive anxiety around speaking on the phone; including things like sometimes not having the courage to ring the doctor for an appointment for months...

My parents moved when my brother and I were young and they were the first people in our family to leave the tiny town we'd lived in for hundreds of years. We went from North England to South. My Dad stressed to us that we were to speak in a neutral English accent in order to "fit in" and I understood it because when I used the wrong vernacular or words that were normal to me, people hooted with laughter and repeated things back to me in a facsimile of my accent. And then conversely, as time went on, I'd visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc and they'd laugh at me, repeat words I'd said and call me posh.

I went back to where I'm from this week for the first time since my last grandparent died and I stood in Aldi listening to two women stacking the shelves with tears running down my face because they sounded like my family and then spent the rest of the day feeling really discombobulated because the place felt like home. It's where my much loved grandparents welcomed us in and the accent was so much a part of their identity. But I don't have it because I learned young that it was easier to reject it.

This is all irrelevant to your original question op but you made me think. People probably don't see the link between accent and identity in the way that they should.

It takes a particular kind of insensitivity to arrive on a thread in the Irish sub board, specifically discussing Irish people’s experience of having the way they speak mocked abroad, and launch into a complaint about how difficult it is to speak the most prestigious dialect of English and be mocked by people who don’t have your social capital.

please don't berate me for singling out the Irish experience on an Irish board.

My apologies, it just came up in active threads, I didn't even notice it was on the Craicnet board! I'd assumed it was AIBU.

Yeah, I'm northern English and used to get this a lot in the south. It's annoying when it's happening all the time, but it's pretty rare now as my accent has changed quite a bit.
It was great when one of the culprits got a taste of his own medicine when working with Americans. He started complaining to me about it and I was like yes! That's what you used to do to me ALLL THE TIME.

No worries, easily done.

For people who think they can ‘do’ an Irish accent, you can’t. You just sound like an idiot.

I worked in London as a young one. I had potato shouted at me every time I got up from my desk. Not much different from my father called Duck Egg 40 years previously.

In my normal accent I sound like Delboy which has been said many many many times, along with people occasionally taking the mick. I don't actually care anymore.

When I'm in work, on the phone etc I speak RP, which then shocks them and they usually check who they're talking to. DH says it's a bit weird, but I honestly can't help it. It's just my phone voice IYKWIMj?

@VaddaABeetch Americans of Irish heritage trying to do an Irish accent is cringeworthy!

it's othering.
I hate it.
spot on what a pp said:
>
It's xenophobia. The people who do it are usually monoglot english.

I'm English and when I lived in the States this happened frequently. I never felt it was done with malice, just friendly teasing.

When I lived in England, people would talk about 'having a paddy' or use the word 'Irish' to mean stupid, among other similar sentiments. It's hard not to feel like the accent mocking isn't connected to this. Any other Irish expats with this same experience?

Paddy is still in use occasionally in the North East (England) OP, but thankfully I haven't come across Irish as a synonym for stupid or thick.

I'm Irish (from the north). Lived in SE for 10+ years. I didn't have anyone mock my accent, most people commented how much they loved my accent. However I did have one family comment that their dc couldn't work with me because they wouldn't understand my accent.

My English dh does joke around (we now live in Ireland), for example will say 'aye dead on'. In an Irish accent. I I just laugh though and am not offended by it. I think an Irish accent is easy to copy whereas I couldn't copy his SE accent.

That's good you had no issues. I think it's fine for your husband to do your accent. A close friendship or relationship is a good context for a bit of teasing. Random people in the workplace, not so much.

It was used in Liverpool. Not sure if its still used, or used much, but the phrase 'dont be so Irish' was a thing.

Maybe some Scousers can come along and let me know if they've ever heard it?

Have you never imitated anyone else's accent??

I'm Scottish and lived in England for a few years and got this allllll the time. Even my friends did it. It was tiresome.

No. When I was a child, my mother told me never to mock anyone. I would never feel it appropriate to just parrot back to someone something they said in the accent they said it in. It feels like a really rude thing to do.

I am Irish,but grew up mostly in South England,I have a plain southern accent.I worked in Walsall for years and was mocked mercilessly for the way I speak.I just ignored it,it just showed me how ill mannered some are.

Kids can be cruel too, I remember going to Ireland as a child (from North London) and cousins and neighbours doing impressions of me. I remember being bemused as they were more Artful Dodger than Danny Dyer! I remember giving them a very long look and saying “yeah… I don’t sound like that, right?” Apart from the indignity of their awful impression I wasn’t too bothered.

Not the same as someone "doing" my accent but I'm from Meath, living in London and my DH is English.

His family like to let me know if I'm saying something "wrong".
As an example, pronouncing bath with a short "a" sound rather than an "ah" sound. They'll then say "bath" in my accent a few times laughing.

I find it incredibly rude but they think it's hilarious to go on about it.

Any sort of singling someone out because of how they talk is just bullying to me and makes the other person seem narrow minded and uncultured.

I'm from the north of England. When I was growing up "paddy" was the term used for tantrum. When I moved to the south that word wasn't used. There's a lot of dialect words where I'm from and I simply assumed that was one of them. I never connected it to the racist use of "Paddy". Never entered my head and my mind is a bit blown that we were unconsciously using a racist term.

It's really surprising that people who's accents regularly get mocked mock other people's!

I have a workmate from London and we do tease each other, but it is meant as light hearted. We don't do it to other people! She uses a long A and I use a short one in words like bath, glass. I remember finding it hilarious once when she said her grass was sparse. To me, grass and sparse sound totally different, to her they sound the same. She laughs when I say mom, she says mum.

I have a London accent and had someone do the “Cockney Sparra” accent at me in Ireland. I just put it down to ignorance same as anywhere in the world. they didn’t mean to offend