I have to confess to receiving a rude shock just now when I viewed an online video where an Australian was giving his thoughts on a number of issues. No, it was not the content of the video that was shocking; it was the accent that took me by surprise.
I just realized that, after living in Canada for 8 months, my ears have become so accustomed to the Canadian accent (and also the French-accented English at School) that the accent an average Aussie (as opposed to newsreader) has suddenly sounds quite odd to me. Hmmm... It's dawned on me that I will have to re-adjust to the Aussie accent when I return home.
Food for thought indeed.
I know I have had to change the way I say "tomato", "basil", "banana", and so on, just so my Canadian classmates and housemates can understand what I am saying. And these days I even catch myself saying "shrimps", instead of "prawns", and "washroom" instead of "toilet" or "loo"... The list goes on. /chuckles/
I find this process of linguistic accommodation (which refers to the way people adjust their speech to accommodate those around them) quite fascinating.
