Tuesday, June 29, 2004

"It's Quite Nice, Actually."

A political science professor--late, opinionated, balding, youngish--who attended the seminar I helped host last week, just called me. The first thing he said was, "Now, Sarah. Where were you raised?"

"New York," I said. "Long Island."

"Ah," he said. "Is there a Long Island element to your accent, or is it just a family thing?"

I laughed.

"I'm only asking because it's positive. It's quite nice, actually. I wouldn't say so otherwise."

"Well, I think it's primarily a family thing. In New York people often think I come from England, which just shows you how little they--"

"Yeah," he said. "That's funny. They should know better. But there is an aristocratic element to it. My other question is, who's laying down the law about these research accounts? Because I can only figure that they want the money back..."

1 comment:

Rachel Olson said...

Did he really say that? You know, some people I know have asked me if I came from England. One time, I decided I was going to speak with a British accent for a whole day when we went to Pittsburgh. We played Night Games with Timmy's friend and during the game, he walked up to me and asked, "Are you from England?" I laughed so loud I think that you probably could have heard me. Finally, with tears of laughter running down my cheeks, I replied," Nah, I just wanted to speak with an accent and that's the only one I know besides this." It might not seem funny, but I can assure you that at that moment I probably would have died from laughing. I didn't expect at all that people would actually believe I'm from England (as in, I was living there). Well, Cheerio Ol' chap! (Put that In the rubbish bin).