Hall: Don’t Be Put Off By Accents

We socially twitchy human beings tend to judge other people not only by the color of their skins but by the weird accents of their voices. For instance, I know a man who speaks upper crust English in the same accent as former English Prime Minister Tony Blair. But that’s misleading. My friend is a man of ordinary interests no smarter than most of us. But when you hear him speak, the accent tends to make a person think the speaker has some giant brain. We don’t often experience that accent around here. But when we hear it on television, it is often some brainy British politician, philosopher or scientist. So we tend to equate that accent with smart people, whether they are or not. On the other hand, President Lyndon Johnson and President George W. Bush - two men with down-home Texas accents - sound like uneducated hicks to my bigoted ear/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

DFO: My father-in-law was a sharp man who taught math and science in high school. However, he had an accent that made him sound as though he came from the streets of Brooklyn. Which he did — and an orphanage, to boot.

Question: Do you form opinions of others as a result of their accents?