Do I? Or Don't I?

I'm not sure how much of a melting pot the US is anymore. Living in Ohio my whole life, it wasn't often that I'd run into people who had just arrived from another country. Sure, there were certain places around town where I would hear people with thick, new-to-America accents. But it was usually just the same 2 or 3 accents. My guess is that large coastal cities like New York, LA and Miami are still rich with a renewing supply of the world's citizens, but those places (for other reasons) have never enticed me to visit them. (Can you believe that I have been in 41 of the 50 states, but I've never even stepped foot in Florida?)

Anyway, our experience is that Australia is quite the melting pot. (For a short read on Australian population growth from immigration, follow this link.) Here in Brisbane, it is very difficult to find a person who was born and raised in Brisbane. Relatively speaking, even meeting a native Queenslander is a tad on the rare side. Although I have to admit that my experience is skewed because my kids go to a school that caters to expat children, and I attend a monthly luncheon for women who've recently relocated to Queensland. (Around the table are women from France, Germany, England, India, New Zealand, Denmark, Korea, South Africa — it's all so fascinating to me!) Still, when I'm out and about, if I hear an accent that I don't recognize, I love to ask where the person is from.

Some of the accents are immediately apparent to me, and there is no reason to ask from where the person originates. For example, there is a mother at school whose Scottish brogue is as lovely as her long, strawberry-blonde hair.

But there are other accents, more complicated accents, that drive me a bit bonkers. I'll listen closely and hear familiar tones, but I can't make it fit into just one country. Taking another example from school, there is one mom where I have tried for three months now to figure out her accent. Finally, I gave in and asked her this week. She was born in South Africa to parents who were newly moved there from Greece. They spoke Greek at home. But then she spent nearly 20 years living in England. She also admitted to me that she actually works on her accent when she moves, trying to adapt it to her new country.

Hybrid accents like that school mom's are something that we encounter quite often. There are Indian people who attended university in England. There are Japanese people who've lived and worked in Germany. I get to hear so many fascinating life stories with just six little words: "That accent... where are you from?"

One thing that surprised us when we moved here was the large variety of accents from Aussies. Which when you think about it, it shouldn't have been surprising at all. Australia is almost the same size as the US, and just think of all the different accents there — New York, Boston, New Orleans, Texas, South Carolina, Chicago, Minnesota, So Cal, etc.

The purple overlay is Australia. It usually looks smaller on a map, don't you think?

I'm not the only person here who's striking up conversations with strangers over their accents. I often get asked about my own accent. Half the time, however, people will take a guess as to where I'm from. And of those guesses, 9 out of 10 times the person will say, "Are you from Canada?"

Truth be told, this is not the first time in my life I've been mistaken for a Canadian. The first time was back in high school. A friend's mother was driving a group of us girls to a football game. This was to be the first of many football games that she chauffeured a van full of us girls to. She interrupted the teen-girl banter (which I'm sure was loud, giggly, and with everyone talking at once) to ask if I was from Canada. Canada? Me? Really? I was born and raised in the same city as she was, but to her I sounded Canadian.

This question puzzled me a great deal, until I realized that it was quite possible that I did sound Canadian. I watched A LOT of TV as a kid. Our neighborhood was a bit rough, so we didn't venture out often. One of my favorite shows, and I mean FAVORITE shows, was a ridiculous program on Nickelodeon called "You Can't Do That On Television." It was like Laugh-In for kids and pre-teens, it was purely stupid, and I sat and watched it every single time it was on. The show was produced in Canada, and all the actors had Canadian accents...

As Adrian can attest, I'm one who adopts an accent quickly. A dear friend of mine has a Minnesotan accent. She's not from Minnesota, but the accent became a part of her during college. She and I are like accent sponges — one of the many things that we have in common and that make me love her dearly. Well, Adrian knows, knows without asking, if I have spoken on the phone to this friend. The "you betcha" and the looong long-o's that escape my mouth for the rest of the evening are a dead giveaway.

So... do I sound Canadian or don't I? If this friend has kept her accent since college, perhaps my TV-induced Canadian accent has remained with me since the '80s. It's possible. And I've had so many people here ask me if I hail from Canada. Heck, I've even had a Canadian ask me if I'm Canadian!! I figured that's pretty conclusive evidence right there. I must still have a Canadian accent, eh?

Or... maybe not. This week I was having a conversation with a repair man at the house (Aussies would call him a "tradesman"), and he asked if I was Canadian. I explained that I'm from the States but that I get asked a lot if I'm Canadian. Rather than recount my childhood television-watching habits, I started to explain that I grew up right across the lake from Canada. Being British, he cut me off before I could finish my sentence — Brits have no tolerance for people rambling on about themselves. He interrupted me to say that he was pretty certain I was from the US, but didn't want to risk offending me because "Canadians get so offended when you ask if they're from the States."

Huh? Offended? Interesting... I'm going to have to pick the brains of the next Canadians I meet. I want to learn more about this.