Accenting your Speech

College is supposed to be a time of new experiences. A time to be exposed to the different and the foreign to what we are accustomed to. My friends here at school come from all across the country and supposedly, they all speak English. Sometimes, however, the different speech patterns and accents we bring with us make it barely recognizable as such.
In fact, I once tried to convince some kid from Tennessee he had a funny Southern accent for about two hours, including numerous examples and a demonstration of his accent.

Fortunately for you, I have few if any oddities about my speech, and the ones that I do have are perfectly acceptable and barely noticable. Just to get that straight.

My roommate, for example, is from Minnesota. I figured I’d start with the least noticable and work my way up. (If you disagree, just remember that my accent or lack thereof is considered absolute zero in terms of normalcy. And I used to live in Wisconsin.) So anyway I guess my roommate considers me normal because one night we stayed up until 3:00 AM with me teaching her to say ‘bag’ instead of ‘bay-g’. It was quite intensive therapy, and apparently though she still regresses, we muddied her accent enough so that her sister made fun of her this summer. Yup, I like to make a difference in people’s lives.

The weirdness doesn’t end there. I know a certain person (not mentioning names but you know who you are, buddy) from a certain East coast state (which may or may not be New Jersey). I don’t know if it’s just a New Jersey thing, but remember the Micro-Machines man from those old commercials who would talk so fast he was barely comprehensible? Right. This New Jersey resident talks so fast she makes him sound like Ben Stine. And in addition to trying to make my brain function fast enough to understand her, she also throws in her own creative pronunciations of words like ‘arnge’ and ‘wudder’. I’m writing them phonetically so you can learn them too. An interactive column all because Hooked on Phonics worked for me.

Living in such close proximity to everyone, I’ve noticed that accents are contagious. Like one of the fun viruses that are floating around campus, I’ve been picking up little bits and pieces of other people’s accents. I don’t know if blended inheritance applies to the way we talk, but by the end of my four years here it’s more than likely that all of my friends and I will talk exactly the same.

Keeping in Touch

How many of you have an Instant Messager screen name? No, don’t raise your hand. You’re reading a newspaper and I can’t see you. I’m willing to bet most of the campus would recognize that familiar little ‘ding’ that means someone wants to distract you from whatever you happen to be doing online. It’s free, and the best way I’ve found to keep in touch with my family and friends away from school. And besides, it’s free.

Supposedly there’s a new version out that lets you actually talk through your computers. I haven’t tried it yet because I can just imagine how disastrous it would be on my academic career. I know I’ve been on IM too long, though, when I hear that ‘ding’ in random places, like the Union, or in class. That’s when I know I’ve got to find an alternate way to talk to them for a while.

There’s always the old stand-by of mail, and we all know how I enjoy the U.S. Postal Service and their bags of postmarked joy. And if you get creative though, you can even spice up mail. Once I sent a friend of mine a letter in an airline vomit bag (unused, of course. What were you thinking?) I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the people who delivered it.

Then, of course, there’s the phone. Expensive, yes, unless you have relatives who express their love for you on the holidays in the form of phone cards. I don’t think I’ve had a phone bill yet this year thanks to them. Only problem is that annoying recorded voice warning you that you’re about to be cut off. “You have one minute remaining. Please say good-bye now, and then speak in short, 3-word sentences in hopes that you will not be [click].”

E-mail is great, as long as it isn’t in the form of a lame chain letter. Nothing says “I randomly clicked your name in my address book so you could get this piece of impersonal garbage” like a chain letter. I mean, what.

It’s not hard to keep in touch with your family and friends while at school. It’s simply a matter of – wait… I think I just heard and IM ding… somewhere… I’ll finish that thought next week. The phantom IM-er is back and wants to talk to me!

Time After Time

Fall back, spring forward. I mean, what? Personally I think daylight savings time is a pretty pointless ritual, relevant only to those who enjoy mind games and living in near perpetual darkness. I remember learning the gist of it in seventh grade social studies class but the reason has since been forgotten. Something about farmers, I think. Because that makes sense. Corn really cares what time of the day it gets picked.

Early evening classes with daylight savings time are the worst. I go into a lecture when it’s still daylight out. After the lecture, which most times already seems like it went on for a month and a half anyway, I leave the building and step into complete darkness. There went the rest of my day. Only thing to do now is homework… okay, so maybe not. But class is not exactly my ideal way to finish out the day. I mean, I could be watching the daylight savings sunset- or, a movie. Whatever.

My mom did call me though, to remind me to set my clock back. About 3 days later. As if I wouldn’t have realized it by then. I’m used to being late for stuff, but I think I’d sense a pattern if I was repeatedly exactly one hour late for everything. I’m bright like that.

My mom told me I should have ‘saved the hour’ until the next morning. So I could wake up and then be relieved because I didn’t really have to get up… “Aw man, I have to get up and shower… no, wait! I can sleep for another hour! Oh, thank you daylight savings time!” Please. I’m never that coherent on any morning. Most mornings the numbers on my digital clock confuse me.

I don’t even know why my mom remembered that most of the world has daylight savings time. You see, she’s in central Indiana, which, I learned, seceded from the whole daylight savings time club. How is that allowed? Do they allow half memberships? I enjoy the whole ‘gaining an hour’ thing, but I’m not so keen on losing it again in the spring. Can we just do that first part? Every year we’ll fall farther and farther behind the rest of society. About a quarter of a century and they’ll lap us. But that’s okay. Daylight savings time is not a race. I don’t think. I don’t know, I just know it has something to do with farmers. Maybe it’s like a tractor pull. I don’t really understand the point of those, either.