My family definitely think I am wanky. They hate the fact that my accent and vocabulary has changed. It genuinely hasn't been a conscious choice or affectation though and the interesting thing is that, at work, people seem to think I'm as rough as they come and I've been on the end of behaviour which is seriously dipping into bullying territory due to my apparent working class roots. So in reality I'm stuck in a middle ground - too posh for my family and too common for my colleagues. In reality, everything I say, and the way I say it, just comes naturally to me. Forcing the balance in either direction would be an affectation.
I was obsessed and hell-bent on studying and working with foreign languages since I was very young. I was extremely lucky and grateful to my parents for letting me go on an exchange trip to Spain at age 13 and because I got on so well with my exchange family and loved immersing myself in their life and language, I went to stay with them again several summers in a row. This was late 80s/early 90s and right from my first visit, I discovered an amazing Spanish foodstuff. I couldn't get enough of it and because I was learning the language and had no frame of reference for this food existing anywhere outside of Madrid, I learnt the Spanish pronunciation, "choreetho". Genuinely, chorizo was not available in the UK, or at east my part of the UK at that point. I took packs of it back for my mum and dad and they also loved it and learned the name choreetho from me (to be fair, they usually called it "that Spanish salami stuff" ) and for years I had no other frame of reference. Then chorizo exploded onto UK shores and everyone started pronouncing it choritso and other variations. For over 20 years, I've had people calling me wanky, waiters smirking and friends asking "do you have to?" whenever I say the word but genuinely, the Spanish pronunciation is hard-wired into my brain and coms out without thinking. I can switch between pie-ella and pie-eyuh easily but that's because I had an anglicised frame of reference before learning the Spanish (even if that frame of reference was Vesta) but chorizo had only one pronunciation for me for about 15 years before I ever heard it differently.
I'll admit to other wankiness though. I decided to carry and use a briefcase at University. Thankfully this was before the Inbetweeners. I must have looked like such a pretentious twat.
I remember telling my childhood best friend, in the late 90s, that it would be difficult to keep in touch with her as I only communicate by email now (thankfully, she forgave my wankiness and we are heading towards 50 years of friendship now).
And the worst. Mentioned my favourite author to MiL and her sister. The sister said she had tried reading one of the author's books but found it confusing. "Yes", I said "It's probably not for you. It's quite highbrow". In my defence, I was 21, straight out of Uni and thought I was far more intelligent than those old women. I cringe myself inside out thinking about it now.