What Are You? The Wacky World of Funny Accents

by Dora Raymaker

categories: acceptance, Communication

Published July 22, 2009 @ 10:51AM PT

There's a farmer's market down the street from me. Rainier cherries were on sale for $2.47 a pound--an irresistible opportunity.

There was no get-in-get-out for me this time--before I'd even gotten a bag for collecting my cherries, I was confronted by crescents of fresh cantaloupe, "have some fresh cantaloupe, have a sample, please," a voice, connection. Say thank you-- "Yes, thank you." Good grief, that melon is good! "Melon is very good."

"Oooo, what are you?" the lady asked me. "You have such an accent! I'm Russian."

This is kind of a funny moment. Do I say, "Oh, I am apraxic!" Or "I am autistic!" Do I say, "I am Italian, but my 'accent' is just a speech problem?" What are you? Always an interesting question.

After a lot of thinking about how much educating I want to do right that moment (none, all I really wanted was to plop those ripe, juicy cherries into my mouth) I answered, "I have trouble speaking." I smiled huge, laughed a little, so that she knows I do not take offense. It's a sequence of steps I've learned, practiced, repeat a lot. I have a few versions of the script.

I met recently with a lady with ALS who is interested in one of the speech devices I use. I handed her my device with my "greetings" page open for her to play with and she pressed on "I can hear you just fine." She started laughing. She understood exactly why I have that message. When I'm at a disability-related event instead of a fruit stand, or interacting with someone who has connections to the Deaf community, I get signed at just as often as spoken to.

This is an interesting example of how context and experience plays out in people's assumptions: my "accent" is assumed as coming from growing up as a non-English speaker to some, and assumed to be because I'm deaf to others, depending on what sort of culture one is attuned to.

I long ago got over the childhood torment I'd been put through over my "funny accent." It's just a fact of my life, and I have learned how both accept it and how to help others to understand and accept it also and move past it. Learning how to effectively dispel various not-quite-right reactions to atypical communication is a very valuable life skill to me and to the people I interact with.