America has given us many great things – Chevy Chase, HBO,
rap music, Halle Berry – but it has also provided us with its fair share of
less desirable exports. McDonald’s, Coors Light, Paris Hilton, George Dubya...I
could go on all day. The influence of the ‘greatest nation on the planet’ is
bound to be felt in countries like Ireland, we look at those Stateside and
imagine them to be so much more refined than us thick eejits on this rainy
outpost in the middle of the Atlantic.
And this fascination with all things American has, for
years, seen us adopt many of their more catchy phrases and idioms. Without even
realising it we began to pepper our conversations with these unfamiliar sound
bytes, “Hey dude, how’s it hangin’”, “That’s fuckin awesome man”,
“So...like...totally.....right”? This is an acceptable part of
cross-culturalism and given the sheer amount of American TV shows, films and
music that Irish people consume it is hardly surprising that we choose to
utilise some of the lingo.
But in recent years a more worrying trend has emerged. A
trend which should it continue will either see our nation completely lose its
identity or, more likely, result in a mass killing spree orchestrated by my
good self. Sociologists have rather kindly referred to this phenomenon as the
“Mid-Atlantic Accent”, but I have a different name for it; “stupid,
pretentious, little cunts trying to sound like Americans”.
I can still vividly recall my first experience of this
bizarre, new craze, it happened about five years ago and it shook me to my
core. Suffering from a touch of man-flu I dragged my weary body to the nearest
Centra in search of salvation. And after a rather pleasant transaction with the
well-mannered, young lady behind the counter I pocketed my box of Lemsip and
made for home, but not before my new acquaintance offered some parting words of
advice. “Feel better”, she hollered as I exited the shop; what? Was this is a
question? A warning? What the fuck was she on about?
I subsequently learned that what she had actually meant was
“I hope you feel better soon”, but instead of behaving like a normal member of
Centra’s staff she had chosen to envisage herself behind the counter of Wal-Mart
or some other dastardly American conglomerate. ‘Feel better’. Is this now the way of things? Delivering two word sentences in a horrifically cheerful
manner instead of actually taking the time to wish someone all the best as they
recuperate from a touch of the sniffles?
In the aftermath of
this traumatic encounter I vowed to track all those who conversed in this vile
manner and give them my most steely of glares; but not before I felt better of
course. And the sad thing was, this girl wasn’t alone. There were hundreds of
others just like her, all telling one another to feel better and high-fiving
themselves as they did so. I’m loath to make rampant generalisations about any
class of people but there did appear to be a specific demographic of offenders:
white, middle-class youths in their teens or early twenties.
It didn’t matter whether they were Goths, skaters, hip-hop
headz or sporty types, they were all at it. I should point out at this juncture
that I wasn’t surreptitiously following groups of teens around in the manner of
an urban David Attenborough, it just so happens that I’m the observant type. It
got to the point where I’d physically bristle anytime I encountered a mob of potential
suspects, and yet I couldn’t take my eyes off them. They’d greet one another
with elaborate handshakes lifted straight from The Wire and some of the boys
would even hug, that’s right hug! I have mates that I’ve known for twenty years
who I wouldn’t even dream of touching, unless it was for a manly handshake of
course. Hugging!!! They’d probably only seen one another a few hours previous.
Fucking hell.
But the physical contact is only a small part of it. It’s
the accent I’m really interested in. And attending a university full of my test
subjects has offered insight beyond my wildest dreams. Thankfully my young
classmates are far too discerning to even attempt a faux New Yorker accent and
they pepper the air with indecipherable Kerry-speak, Cork langerisms and pure,
uncut Limerick lingo on a daily basis. However UL is a big place and it is
inevitable that you will encounter someone hailing from Clare by way of Chicago
at some point during your day.
The bus is probably the best –or the worst depending on
which way you look at it – place to listen to them unhindered though. Unlike
the university campus I can sit and listen to other people’s conversations
without feeling like an FBI agent. And my how they talk! “Yah”,”Mom”,”Supah”,”I
knooow”, “Haw, haw, haw”, and so on and so on. During a recent journey I had
the misfortune to be sitting behind a young couple discussing the previous
night’s frivolities, “Sooo whut did you get up to last noight then”? Asked the
female, “Not all that much”, replied her paramour in his Pennsylvanian patter,
“just a bunch of beers with the guys and then crashed for the night”.
I’m not making this up, I wish I was! And I know for a fact
these people weren’t foreign exchange students from the US, one look at the big
thick Mayo heads on em told me that. In the real world this is how their
conversation would have went, “So boy wha dye do last nigh then”? “Ah twas a
quiet wan girl, just skulled a couple a slabs with the lads and woke up on the
couch covered in fag butts”. Nothing wrong with that, a fine example of the
Irish dialect if you ask me. Call it inverted snobbery, class disgust or
whatever you wish; but what’s wrong with speaking in the same manner that your
parents, and their parents before them, spoke?
So we’ve established that a lot of people in this country no
longer wish to sound Irish, but what I want to know is why? Are they ashamed of
their accent? Is it a peer pressure thing? Do they believe that talking in this
way makes them appear superior to others? There are certain Irish accents that
do pierce your skull if listened to for extended periods, but is that reason
enough to adopt a pseudo Cincinnati speech? Of course one listen to any Irish
radio station or one viewing of a home-grown television programme (apart from
Fair City) will tell you all you need to know. The airwaves are rife with
Mid-Atlantic morons, all speaking in that same familiar tongue. Where are these
people from? Nobody knows. RTÉ probably clone them up in Donnybrook.
And the irony is that once you make it big in this country
(which, let’s face it, isn’t very big) you are obliged to adopt this accent. A
few have slipped through the net – Hector, Daíthi O’Sé, Dustin – but our
burgeoning celebrity culture has ensured that failure to comply with this
unspoken rule will see you sink without trace. Did anyone happen to watch the
Irish Celebrity Come Dine with me last year? There was a tall, blonde
non-entity on it that went by the name of Rosanna Purcell. No, not Pursel as it
is phonetically pronounced but Purr-Cell, as if it were a mysterious French
moniker handed down by Napoleon himself. Is this what we have become reduced
to? Making up fancy names for ourselves in an attempt to appear suave?
You’d actually wonder what Americans think when they come
here and encounter real Irish people for the first time. Having spent years
listening to Bono’s intangible drawl they must automatically assume that we
speak like them, after all Bono is our one and only saviour is he not? He must
be the perfect representation of all things Irish! Mustn’t he? As yet another
stream of Stateside septuagenarians meander down O’Connell Street and find
themselves in need of assistance they do what any tourist does; ask a local for
directions. Luckily they approach a true son of Éire, a gruff, red-cheeked Dub
on his way to sink the first of many afternoon pints of stout. The following
conversation resembles Columbus’s first encounter with the Native Americans ,
lots of gesticulations and slowly, mouthed words, but by the end neither party
are any the wiser. “I thought they spoke American here”, remarks one
silver-haired Texan as the Yanks walk away scratching their heads.
Aside from the fact that it is terribly annoying there is
also a more serious side to this outbreak of pomposity. I’m not a particularly
patriotic Irishman and wasn’t even born in this country but I can see the
potential damage of having an entire generation conversing in this way. Already
our sovereignty is under threat from our paymasters in Germany and now we wish
to throw away one of the things that makes us unique: our lovable Irish brogue.
But more than that, it’s about our identity. I only live a hundred miles or so
from the place I call home, but every now and again I encounter someone local
to this region that, after a few minutes of chatting, can’t help but ask,
“Where you from then, I can’t quite place your accent”? “Kilkenny”, I tell
them. Not Kansas, not Cleveland, not even Kentucky, just Kilkenny, thank you
very much.
