I am heavily influenced by others. This got me into a wee bit of trouble in my teenage years before I realized it was a problem of mine. Since “growing up and maturing,” I have learned to avoid people who will influence me negatively.
Even though I now avoid negative influences like the plague, I often find my tendency to be influenced creeping it’s way into my speech patterns.
After a few days in Oklahoma, I was drawling like the best of them. Three days in London gave me an accent my husband was sure would offend the locals. Much to his dismay, the accent was only enhanced by the compliments of my friend’s British husband. (He may have only been using his good English manners when he told me my accent could almost pass as a true Brit’s accent, but I took it to heart and even adopted some phrases. My apologies to any British people if I misused the word ‘dodgy.’)
After spending time with anybody, I often find myself using the same phrases they use. It makes me very uncomfortable when those phrases escape my mouth, and I wonder if they think I am trying to copy them. Really, though, I can’t help it!
Well, now I am reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time. It truly is a delightful book and I adore the long, flowery, round-about method Jane Austen employs to get to the point.
Instead of just saying, “The women gathered around to eat the fruit,
Jane Austen says,
There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches, soon collected them round the table.
Finding myself absolutely delighted with this way of describing, I am noticing myself adopting early 19th century high society British language into my daily speech.
In the past few days, I have caught myself saying,
- “Most agreeable!”
- “I should think so.”
- “At present,”
- “Most certainly do!”
And perhaps the biggest embarrassment:
When speaking to a woman about how heavily involved she is in the many groups she is in charge of, she mentioned that she is learning the art of delegation.
My reply?
“With your schedule, I should think you would find yourself needing to employ that skill most often.”
Don’t worry. I only have about 100 pages until the end of the book, at which point I will begin another book and find something else to inadvertently imitate.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Um, just don’t move to the Twilight series or I may never hang around you again. But you could totally read anything by Sophie Kinsella and bring back that London accent!
I love Jane Austin too and I do so wish we could employ all those flowery words in our every day speech and do so with a sweet little southern drawl that would cause both the English and the South to stare in absolute wonder at us, but alas, we are just plain Americans that like things plain and simple and to the point and sometimes even a little backward and boring.
This is hillarious! Did you really say that? I have the same problem, but not as extreme. I invited you to my blog. Were you able to get on?
Haley, I really truly did say that. As it was escaping my mouth, I kept thinking, “STOP, you freakazoid!” But it just kept coming. Yup, got to your blog. Thanks for the invite!
I think YOU may be a little dodgy.