Dialect and Accent

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Anyone else ever get the feeling that their speaking voice and choice of words never got its head around what part of world you come from? (Apologies for the terrible metaphor!)

It's something I've known I do for a very long time, way before my autism was diagnosed. I don't have to be talking to someone for very long before I start adopting bits of their accent and dialect. I've even been mistakenly accused of mocking someone's accent or vocal tics a few times - I don't notice I'm doing it until there's a pause and I hear the "echoes" of the words in my head.

If you were to ask me to do an impression of one of our glorious British dialects, for a joke say, I wouldn't have a clue where to start. It's not that I can't identify the dialects, it's just that I can't do it on purpose - only when I'm in my full-on "normie" stealth mode and I've been talking to the same person for more than a couple of minutes.

Part of it is upbringing I'm sure. My family were from all over the country - brought together by chance encounters forged by the needs of world war two, adoption and second marriages. I moved "up North" after I finished school - an area with a dialect and vocabulary that left me feeling even more lost following conversation than usual for quite a while. So I've been exposed to a lot of different accents in my lifetime.

I realise that we all change our speech patterns to suit the occasion - I wouldn't talk to my Mum the same way as I do to my computer, for a start! But I don't notice other people around me switching accent and dialect with the same frequency that I notice when I catch myself doing it.

I feel that way all the time!

I have a very large vocabulary of older words (mostly sayings from the 50s and slang from the 80s and 90s) and a very small vocabulary of modern slang, so I sound like an old person a lot of the time. Then as far as accent, I'm definitely a mutt as far as where I'm from. I was born in California, spent most of my life in Texas, then 6 years ago moved to Colorado. I'm currently living in Arizona and have lived here for a few years.

Lived in the south during most of my formative years. Never had that southern drawl like the family and neighbors. Some say they can hear it, but it's not Andy Griffith or Minnie Pearl with me though. That would be everybody else in the family.