Ring Ring Ring

Well snoop, you do sound a lot like me, so I guess she could pick up on your accent and take it and run with it, even though you're not racist. 🙂

Solly about your bad ruck.

The worst is when you are out and come back to listen to a phone message, and you can't tell what is being said.

This happens with many accents here.

FUGETABOUDIT

I'm pretty good at understanding accents, compared to some people who just get irritated with people who have limited English skills. A Russian guy called yesterday and I could understand him and figured out what he needed, but apparently he couldn't understand my answers too well so he had his daughter call me so I could explain to her. She sounded like a teenager and had no accent at all, but all that East and West and map jargon I was trying to tell her wasn't sinking in very well. I emailed her the map I was trying to explain with a written message and haven't heard back from them so I guess they figured it out.

Usually, they do no understand what we say either.

Give a smile and request for them to send you a letter explaining their need of your assistance and any papers they may have for you to review.

I had a similar situation about 13 years ago while trying to register a domain name for my ex who had a great idea. I spelled it to her 3 times, she got it wrong every time and it cost me about $100 for a junk domain name. When the new domain name showed up - and was still wrong - I went ballistic. I called them up immediately and the first idiot I got couldn't "no and speak England" either. I told said idiot to just get me someone who speaks English. Several people later I actually got someone who did. IN the end I was still out $100 and still owned a junk domain name.

, you being racist - you no be racist with me" and then she hung up.
>
> some days you just can't win.

But this day you did win....think about it...:)

We had a lady here one time doing GIS mapping. She occasionally answered the phone when the calls got heavy. She was originally from Ohio and talked through her nose.

One day I had called a fellow with the utility department in southern middle Tennessee. He was out so I left a message. I then left for a few minutes. When I got back, Ohio woman told me, "some guy called you and I have no idea who he was or what he wanted. I couldn't understand a word he said. It was all I could do to get his number. It sounded like he had a mouth full of ****".

Well, I called the guy back. His accent sounded like a black person from Mississippi. I had absolutely NO problem understanding anything that he said. He was crystal clear and plain as day.

After the phone call I went to Ohio woman and told her there was nothing wrong with the way that man talked and she needed to get her ears recalibrated.

> , you being racist - you no be racist with me" and then she hung up.
> >
> > some days you just can't win.
>
> But this day you did win....think about it...:)

WORD!

I once worked for an outfit that hired an Australian fellow, three weeks in country. I myself was just a few months out of Canada at the time. Everyone else had a very difficult time understanding him and would often look to me for a translation. He was perfectly clear to me.

BTW - That guy now owns the company.

Along with Mark's experience, I guess I was lucky for having worked at Unisys Corp for all those years. I couldn't tell you how many countries we had people there. One guy was from Hungary with heavy accent. Not many could understand him but I could without a thought. We became best friends over the years. Often he would break into full on Hungarian (Magyar) not realizing he was. I started to pick it up so long as he kept it simple. One day at his house, we were discussing a compiler we had written and his son was there. He broke into Hungarian in mid-sentence and it threw me off big time. After repeating himself about 3 or 4 times he was getting frustrated at me. All of a sudden his son (about 12 years old) pipes up "Dad!, You're speaking Hungarian to him!!". We all started laughing our ass.ss off. Both of his boys spoke fluent in either English or Hungarian without breaking a stride. I think they both were translators during the Olympics here in Atlanta back then.

We had another guy from Russia who thick with his accent. No one could deal with him either. I had no problem with him. He reminds me of Peggy on those credit card commercials. However, this guy was running about a 150 or better IQ. Part of understanding Russian is to know the difference in syntax and grammar. Yeah it sounds funny to us but if you know the Russian lanugage even a little you'll understand why it doesn't translate well into English. Lakota Sioux is even worse.

I had a bunch of Canadian dollars I needed to exchange, so I went to the currency exchange window at the local bank.

Short line.

Just one lady in front of me . . an Asian lady who was trying to exchange yen for dollars and she was a little irritated . . .

She asked the teller, "Why it change?? Yestaday, I get two hunat dolla fo yen. Today I get hunat eighty?? Why it change?"

The teller shrugged his shoulders and said, "Fluctuations" .

The Asian lady says, "Fluc you white people, too!

Word?

and yes Jeff Dunham is funny as heck....

Sometimes after work, if I think of something I want to remind myself of the next day, I will call and leave a short message on my answering machine. One day about mid morning my secretary came in with the morning telephone messages and ended by saying "and then there is this one man that left a voice message and I swear I can't understand a word he was saying." Priding myself on being able to understand any local person, I checked the answering machine myself. Yep, it was me...

I know what she means. People from Georgia do talk funny.;-)

Years ago, we went to England with a tour group. Right after we got there, we were all sitting around in the hotel lobby and I asked the tour guide "Where is the nearest restroom?". She pointed down the street and said "There's a McDonald's a few blocks down that way." I was wondering what kind of hotel this was when somebody pointed out that she thought I said "restaurant". Well, it was funny at the time.

Here's another knee-slapper. We were in Paris and my wife was working up her courage to go into a shop and studying our English-French dictionary. She was trying to say "I don't know French" but said "Je ne suis Francois" roughly translated to "I am not Frank". I got a million of 'em; I'll be here all week.

Paris was funny. My wife would try to speak to waiters and shop keepers in French, and most of the time they would answer her in perfect English.