You know your "Sherlock" obsession is bad when...

[sittything]

You have an accent?  Where were you raised?  

 

ETA:  I mean TECHNICALLY we all have accents, just not to our own ears.  ;)

[Arcadia]

Well, I guess to people with really fine tuned ears, my accent could be slightly mysterious because my Mom's from the South, my Dad's from the Mid-west, I was born in California and I attended schools in seven different regions by the time I was 16, two of them overseas. So in some sense, I guess I don't have an accent! People in Maine think I have a southern accent, southerners know I don't, and to myself I sound like your average American TV announcer. Also I have fairly precise enunciation. Put me in a room with people who've never been farther from home than the next town, and I imagine I sound pretty exotic!

[SherlockedCAMPer]

I look Norwegian (my predominant background), my sister looks light Irish (smallest percentage background), last name (maiden for me) is German however that small part is Jewish. My brother looks the most Jewish (which isn't saying a whole lot). And as for accent, while being upper Midwest it is blanketed with a Norwegian accent (not quite the mild form from Fargo) & I can drop into a southern drawl like no one's business.

 

You know your Sherlock obsession is bad when you are trying to figure out how to get this thread back on track to Sherlock Obsessions from the ethnic make-up discussion it has started to become ;) (now to go back and write more fanfic)

[Carol the Dabbler]

Jim could be like 1/8 Asian.  I know a fellow who's 1/4 Japanese and 3/4 German, and looks sort of Polish.

Whereas I am 100% Irish-English-German, and have had several people tell me I look Mediterranean or Hispanic. Go figure.

 

People I've known from southern Germany are far darker than northern Italians.  And then there are the "Black Irish" (meaning dark hair and eyes).

 

DNA testing, Arcadia. Who knows, maybe they succeed to trace your ancestry to either Africa or Asia continent, lol.

 

Oh, of course! That would explain why I look Mediterranean or Hispanic!

 

Well, in American usage, "Hispanic" tends to mean "Latin American," and most Latin Americans have a large percentage of American Indian ancestry, which is (if you go back a few thousand years) originally Asian.  And northern Africa is just as Mediterranean as southern Europe!

 

I have fairly precise enunciation.

Well, there's your "foreign accent," then. Seems like most people tend to slur their native language, but are on their best behavior in a foreign tongue. Ergo, if you enunciate your American English, you must be from somewhere else!

 

An American enunciater I used to know told me he'd been complimented on how well he had learned English!

[sittything]

Interesting!  Now I'm always going to be wondering what your accent (or non-accent) actually sounds like... lol.  I wish I had your precise enunciation!!  I talk too fast and my voice is kinda high-pitched and squeaky so I'm a mess to understand for some people.

 

 

[Arcadia]

Listen to a commercial, that's what I sound like. I think.

 

You know your Sherlock obsession is bad when you can't get off this forum, no matter how many non sequiters keep popping up....

[Inge l-w]

Never had much time for genealogy. Ancestors were born in Koenigsberg, others in Luebeck, one in Metz, France, others in Kiel, I have cousins in Bremen and Bremerhaven, in Bonn and Freiburg. Go figure! BUT, we had really special, gifted, talented English language teachers at school, who disdained anything except Standard or Received English pronunciation, so I would probably sound like a fake posh school alumna, and when I visit the place, my accent passes unnoticed. As for speed of delivery, when I need to drive a point home while teaching, I slow down, but my wonderful Dad always complained I talk a mile a minute.

Apparently, it does not come so easily to men, which makes Mr Cumberbatch such an exception, imperceptible lisp or not!

[SherlockedCAMPer]

If I search hard enough, there is a slight chance I might have distant relatives in Luebeck (thanks to Hitler it became slight as I'm not technically German).  I want to get there someday and look around just because there is so much history.  And I love history at least certain parts of it anyway.  (Sherlock would say I prove the point of "Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters.")

[J.P.]

You know your obsession is bad when you think someone might be related to a fictitional character he plays, not the actor himself. :lol:

 

But Moriarty was real! :P

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

Of course #moriartyisreal, Richard Brook...pffft.. :lol:

#kittyrilleylousyjournalist #richardbrooklousyactor #mrshudsonlousyhousekeeper #mycroftlousyoperationplayer #idontusetwitteranddontactuallyknowhowtohashtag

[SherlockedCAMPer]

You hashtag well Van Buren like a true twitter user

[Van Buren Supernova]

You hashtag well Van Buren like a true twitter user

Oooh that is delightful to know 

My introvertness (is it even a word) extends to social media that I neglect Facebook for years and never bother about twitter.

[besleybean]

We've just had a new member of staff start at work.

She's got long, dark , hair, she's very pretty and vivacious...and called Janine!

[Inge l-w]

Consider this one on the other side of the Channel and the North Sea pale chartreuse green with envy!

[jadpdr]

Pale chartreuse with envy! Very flattering to our restorative liqueur!

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

I'm not sure if it's the genes that are weird, or the people who think I look like something I'm not! :D

 

In at least a couple cases they were trying to place my accent and simply shot really wide of the mark. Those romantics, always trying to make someone more exotic than they actually are....

You have an accent?  Where were you raised?  

 

ETA:  I mean TECHNICALLY we all have accents, just not to our own ears.  ;)

Well, I guess to people with really fine tuned ears, my accent could be slightly mysterious because my Mom's from the South, my Dad's from the Mid-west, I was born in California and I attended schools in seven different regions by the time I was 16, two of them overseas. So in some sense, I guess I don't have an accent! People in Maine think I have a southern accent, southerners know I don't, and to myself I sound like your average American TV announcer. Also I have fairly precise enunciation. Put me in a room with people who've never been farther from home than the next town, and I imagine I sound pretty exotic!

 

Ever since I started watching BBC shows, my friends have said that I say "what" more like "wot" and enunciate the T and P in "shut up" more clearly. Whoopsies.  :lol:

[sittything]

I wish my accent would change based on where I lived or what I watched (depending on what that is), but I think I moved out of the midwest too late for that.  I do find, though, that when I watch a bunch of BBC shows I don't hear the British accent anymore.  It just sorta vanishes to my ears.

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

I can put on a British accent, to a certain extent. Not sure which region mine would be considered "from", but one of my Whovian friends said that when I talk with a British accent I sound kinda like Rory from Doctor Who.

[sittything]

I can put on a British accent, to a certain extent. Not sure which region mine would be considered "from", but one of my Whovian friends said that when I talk with a British accent I sound kinda like Rory from Doctor Who.

 

I can do deranged Mary Poppins... does that count?  ;)   Which is basically just an American with a really bad, horribly fake British accent...  Pip pip cheerio!    

 

I know what it should sound like, but I just can't replicate it.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

I believe that's called the movie butler accent!  ;)

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

Oi! Don't knock it!

[sfmpco]

I narrated an entire book I wrote in British, and a friend said I sounded posh.  Then again, he was Cockney, and I have excellent diction, so I suppose it did sound a bit posh to him.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

When I have attempted a British accent, apart from the Cockney, I'm not sure if mine would be considered somewhat posh or if it would fit a particular region.  And in the US, television announcers are taught to speak with a generic Midwest accent as it is considered the most understandable.

[J.P.]

Oi, the accents...

I don't know how I sound in English, but I apparently have a really weird accent in German. It is surely not a typical East-European/Slavic accent. As I came to Germany I had a strong English accent to my German, it went so far that and American took me for someone from England speaking good German (none of that was true at that moment though). Now I did inherit the local accent, at least partially (you automatically imitate people around you), but am notoriously taken for a French, or Dutch, or Scandinavian, but never for what I actually am - at least I have something about me that's intriguing :P I can identify some of the most distinctive dialects in German, but I still cannot imitate them to save my life.

 

But I doubt that I could always tell an American from an Englishman.

 

BTW, is Andrew Scott's "Irish drawl" mentioned somewhere recently, what I just hear as nasal and a bit like having a cold?

 

BTW2: we have hijacked the thread again.
 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Here's to

 

Now for something completely different (yes, I do quote Monty Python on occasion):

 

Watching ASIP with my son.  Had to pause it for a moment because he didn't want to miss a thing.  Mycroft was mid-speech at the warehouse place and had slightly puckered lips.  Of course being a good fan of the show that I am, I try to imitate the look without knowing what I look like as my son and I laugh at Mycroft's look.