h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just read this on the BBC America website. So, does it happen to you? Do you have a strong London accent? do they, in fact, take you for an Orc?

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/05/watch-tom-hiddlestons-reaction-to-pint-sized-fans/

Is this the link you meant to post? http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2014/05/05/australian-british-expat-discusses-mistaken-nationality-america/

To answer your questions...
All the time
Yes, but I have to moderate it most of the time, sometimes even with people I've known a good while
Not had that happen yet

Here's another reaction I sometimes (not too often, thankfully) get, usually after question one has been resolved:

Oh, you're you're from jolly old England are you? How's the queen?



My strategy for dealing with that one now is to do a really bad Texas accent (I can't actually do a good one so it's not exactly a stretch) and say something like "Why yes indeedy, I sure am, and y'all know what? Even though I've lived here nearly 15 years my Texas accent's nearly as bad as your British one."

I'm thinking of affecting a Lancashire accent. We'll see how they deal with that one

Yorkshire Airlines
http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2013/12/30/eight-yorkshire-sayings-will-baffle-americans/

That's my kind of customer service

That (the "Ey up" bit) has reminded me of something. I no longer greet people with 'Awight?' like I used to. Now I say 'Howdy'. You probably couldn't get away with that outside of Texas though. Maybe in a few cowboy states like Wyoming and Montana, but deffo not in New York or California. Around here it's perfectly natural.

haha - but I don't know anyone who says "ee by gum"

sorry about the Tom Hiddleston link ( he's so dreamy ) - the madwoman in the Loki hoodie is a friend of mine.

The people I worked with and knew in Accrington were 'ee by gum' types, and more besides. Words like mardy, jiggered, 'appen, theer (for there), and calling all sweets 'toffees', as well as 'Spanish' for licorice (I think we've talked about that before). Sometimes I mash the tea instead of making it, and often it's 'a brew', not tea.

I still use some of the words and phrases I absorbed there 30 years ago. The occasional 'by eck' slips out, as does 'appen', 'yer daft booger', maybe a thee, thou or tha, and I'll almost always use the flat 'a' in bastard if I'm particularly

Unfortunately any Yorkshire (Sheffield) accent I had was kicked out of me at Junior school in Windsor. As a result I speak with no accent. Americans think I speak like the Queen which amuses me.

But I never get mistaken for an Australian (although when I speak German and I'm not in the area where I live, they sometimes comment on my cute Dutch accent)

I've had it explained to me by one or two Americans that they thought I was Australian because I'd called someone 'mate', and they'd heard Australians do that. I may also have an Australian-sounding vowel or two, but my accent is definitely London.

Do you consider that you speak German with a British accent?

no, my German is generally speaking like my English: accent free. But the longer I live here, especially where I live, the more of a local accent I seem to be picking up. Hence Germans who aren't from round here can sometimes notice that I'm not actually a German, but they think I'm Dutch rather than English because I don't have an english accent speaking German.

IYSWIM?

Then they start on the "oh! A British person speaking German! *swoon*" routine and my slapping hand starts to get twitchy

I'm sure I must have picked up some Texas inflections too, and maybe if I visited friends in Blighty who I haven't seen for a while they'd notice it straight away. I know I do a pretty good Texan 'dang'

And, of course, I have to change words all the time because pavement doesn't mean the same thing here as it does back home, and the inside lane in the UK is the outside lane here (bus seats too), which actually makes more sense if you think about it. When Americans ask me about that I have to explain that we give pedestrians a far higher importance and consider that the inside is where they walk, the outside is the middle of the road, furthest from pedestrians.

Ah, I remember now what I wanted to ask. Do the kids speak English with a German accent?

No they are typical bilingual children and speak English with no accent (so like mine, rather than like their father's which gives more power to the elbow of the expression "mother tongue")

They speak German with the same accent as me for the most part, although they do throw a fair few local words in, and youth-speak.

By the way, there really are times when we have 'no weather' (not going to try and explain this on Twotter - too much of a pain squeezing things like this into 140 characters). It's one of the few things I remember from A level geography.

Britain gets most of its weather from the Atlantic - depressions. That's what brings the rain, mostly.

Sometimes there's high pressure over Scandinavia, and when that happens in the winter we get cold air coming off the continent from as far away as Siberia, which gives us biting cold weather. If the high pressure is over the UK itself we get those cold, crisp frosty winter mornings with a clear blue sky in winter, and hot sunny days in winter (a la summer of 76).

If the anti-cyclone is more to Britain's east in the winter it'll bring down cold northerly winds and give us a chance of snow.

If the high pressure is to the south and east it pulls up tropical air which can make summer days hot and muggy, and trigger thunderstorms.

But often there's, well, nothing happening. No Atlantic depression, no warm or cold fronts over the country, no anti-cyclone to speak of, just no weather. A cloudy day, probably, not especially warm or cold, perhaps a sprinkle of rain.

This is a typical no-weather chart http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/data/CoreProductCache/SurfacePressureChart/Item/ProductId/14478155

well - I do actually know that - my complaint is that it's one of those linguistic things that I really would like to strangle and bury the body.

No *significant* orr *unusual* weather, I could accept.

I've heard meteorologists use the phrase so I guess it must be accepted in the trade. But I see what you're getting at. Such phrases when used by the wider public, non-experts in the field, can give the wrong meaning.