I was reading a favourite blog the other day that is, quite frankly, much better than mine on the subject of what Americans think of the English. The writer is a Brit who lives in New York and has experienced something I have always found odd too; the propensity for North Americans to assume that being from the UK somehow makes me posh and a bit smarter.

I used to get annoyed at the whole “You have a cute accent” thing . I suspect it was a fear that it was just the first part of a longer comment that concluded “Just as well because you are an ugly git.” But, I eventually learned to accept it and use it for nefarious dating purposes, which probably explains why it has stuck around like a mutated wart. Anything that makes you stand out from the crowd i guess, is a good thing too.

The English have a myriad accents — from Geordie, to Brummie to Scouse to Esturine. My accent has flattened out a little from being over here but most Brits would place me somewhere in the south – Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Hampshire maybe. I’ve been told it changes depending on my mood. Somewhat posh when calm a bit more cockney when angry. Imagine Roger Moore morphing into Jason Statham.  

But over here, even if I came from Sunderland, everyone would think my accent was very posh and hoity toity. I guess it is all about ear….it took me some time to discern that the Ontario accent is slightly different than that of the west. They really do say “oot and aboot” down there.

As opposed to us Brits who all say “ieght and abieght.”

I get “what part of Australia are you from?” a lot. Now, maybe you have a hard time between Australia and New Zealand. But c’mon, a British and Australian accent is as different  an accent as Boston is from Arkansas. I usually tell people I am from Zimbabwe just to screw them up.

Some Brits over here do “posh-up” their accents. You talk to some ex-pat and they sound like they just stepped out of their Lined Rovah after arhftanun tea at Asscut with aych are aych. The look on their falling faces as you ask where in Yorkshire are they from is priceless. “Aye up yar right, how thee guess?”

One of things I hated about England is that whole accent-defining-who-and-what-you-are thing. You have to be English to understand it. But open your mouth and your education, class and status is instantly communicated. And it is rubbish. That’s the great thing about Canada — aside from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the North End of Winnipeg, there are no accents and they certainly have no bearing on you education level or status in life. But when people try to lord it up over the rest of us with some fake Oxbridge banter, well then you have to prick that balloon don’t you?

People accept that if you have an English accent you must inherently be smarter. Ability to list at least one of the colleges at Oxford or Cambridge is tantamount to being accepted as having gone there. People are a little puzzled that there are actually other universities in England. I dont know where this comes from but it is endemic.

And people don’t believe you when you tell them people from England are just as stupid as everyone else. Well, people who have never met English package tourists anyway.

The flip side of the positive assumptions of being identified as being English is that you are emotionally remote, cold, crap in bed with really bad teeth. I fight the good fight by pointing to the works of Henry Fielding and Byron et al to dispel the bad in bed thing. The bad teeth thing is slightly harder. But the English are very emotional. You should see how I got when Stoke scored that crap goal the other day. But the English are, I admit, not as sentimental as North Americans. I’ve lived here for ages and I still can’t figure out why people cry on television when they win 200 bucks on Wheel of Fortune.

Now to work on my Terry Thomas impression. “Absolute Shah!”