{"id":159,"date":"2008-04-04T00:43:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-04T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/04\/04\/does-my-hybrid-accent-make-me-sound-smarter-though\/"},"modified":"2008-04-04T00:43:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-04T00:43:00","slug":"does-my-hybrid-accent-make-me-sound-smarter-though","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/04\/04\/does-my-hybrid-accent-make-me-sound-smarter-though\/","title":{"rendered":"Does my hybrid accent make me sound smarter though?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve posted about my strange hybrid accent <\/a>before, but didn’t really touch on how it might affect other people’s perception of my intelligence.<\/p>\n

The topic has come up before. I once told my (Scottish) PhD supervisor that if my plan to move to Vancouver didn’t work out, I would probably go back to England because life’s just so much easier when your accent matches*. He (not very reassuringly) replied, “I think you’ll do well anywhere, despite your accent”. (Note: this conversation took place in a pub and was not meant to be taken overly seriously).<\/p>\n

But he can eat his words now, because the BBC is reporting on a study <\/a>that found a Yorkshire accent (the strongest component of my hybrid effort) to be rated the highest in a test of perceived intelligence. Even more so than the Queen’s English (standard old fashioned BBC-type accent).<\/p>\n

Ha! Take that, Scottish PIs and English Queens.<\/p>\n

Pity the poor old Brummies though. They were rated the lowest, apparently sounding less intelligent than if they’d just stayed silent.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase from The Simpsons:<\/p>\n

Lisa: “Sometimes it is better to stay silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt”.<\/p>\n

Homer: “………..Takes one to know one”.
_____________________________<\/p>\n

*There’s a strong anti-English sentiment in parts of Scotland, and there were some situations in which I kept my mouth shut to avoid drawing attention to myself.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve posted about my strange hybrid accent before, but didn’t really touch on how it might affect other people’s perception of my intelligence. The topic has come up before. I once told my (Scottish) PhD supervisor that if my plan … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-silliness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}