I was never there, I only read the book, I only saw the film

[sovay]

A double-header at this afternoon's medical appointment: the tech not only expressed surprise at my calendar age, but assumed from my voice that I was either foreign-born or had spent significant time out of the country, specifically she thought in the UK. Given the current climate, I should be clear that she was curious, not hostile; one of her children had been a staffer in the Obama administration and two others had been some kind of federal employee and she had considerable feelings on subjects from vaccines to tanks. But after I had gone through the standard litany clarifying the rather pathetic fact that I have lived my entire life in New England and the Boston area for most of it, she still thought I sounded British. "You should go over there. You'd blend right in." She herself had an old-school Boston accent. "People from anywhere, they can tell where I'm from." I am not good at other people's ages, but I don't believe that I look younger than my early forties, especially after the last few ravaging years, and I expect to be heard as American by anyone who actually has one or more of the plethora of accents on offer in the UK. Weirdest instance of trying to place my voice remains the time I was told by a very drunk Australian that I sounded like a Norwegian. Someday the question of my vocal origins will come around again because it has been doing so since my childhood and I will answer "Lisson Grove" just to see what happens.

Comments

[sovay]

I was once chatting in line at a restaurant in Oregon with a couple from Minnesota, and they expressed surprise when I told them I was from North Carolina. "We thought you were Canadian!"

Aside from the obvious question of what they heard in your Appalachian to make them think of Canada and which part, that story is just a terrific regional confluence.

Actually, it's probably a little more pronounced at this moment since I spent the weekend visiting relatives back in the old home pastures and it resurfaces when I'm there and then takes a little while to wear off once I'm back in the flatlands.

Makes sense. I hope it was a nice weekend. Which part of the Appalachians is ancestrally yours?

[gullyfoyle]

Aside from the obvious question of what they heard in your Appalachian to make them think of Canada and which part, that story is just a terrific regional confluence.

I had years of speech therapy as a kid to keep me from ending up sounding like a cross between Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" and Andy Kaufman's "Foreign Man," so I don't care where people think I'm from based on my voice -- I just try to keep it somewhat Terrestrial.

Which part of the Appalachians is ancestrally yours?

Western part of the Brushy Mountains, Caldwell County, NC, going back over 200 years.