The Queens English

Yesterday Stephen Fry said that anyone with a cut glass British accent can be a successful actor in the US just because of the way they speak.

I tend to agree with him. I have been told that my accent is “cute”, “awesome” “like the Queen’s” and “funny” on many occasions.

I would like to clarify that I do not have an upper class accent. I come from London not Surrey or Berkshire.

Yesterday I went to the dry cleaners to have some trousers shortened. It took me about five minutes to explain that I wanted them shortened to 27 and a half inches. The man in the cleaners looked at me. He scratched his head a few times, looked very perplexed and said 27 and a her? I said no, half, he said what and so I said it again (five more times actually). In the end I wrote it down and he looked at it and said ah, a half.

We live in Battery Park. Or Ballery if you are American. The fact that there are two T’s (count em) in Battery seems to make no difference. And try telling the barrista in Starbucks that you want a tall cappuccino. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been given TWO cappuccinos. I now ask for a regular which suits me as I hate having to use Starbucks speak anyway.

Once on a visit to Cape Cod I sat next to a man who asked me where I was from. I said London and he asked me where that was (yes he really did). I said England and he said “Oh that’s part if Ire-Land isn’t it?” I said actually it was close to Indonesia and he nodded his head.

Someone once asked me if I knew so and so from Kent. I said no, Kent was a big place and actually I’m from London. She looked at me like I was crazy and then said but I thought England was smaller than Texas. I replied that yes it was but there were still millions of people living in it.

Apparently Denise Van Outen has to take elocution lessons to help her get rid of her Essex accent. Americans don’t like it by all accounts. So if you have an accent like Hugh Grant in Four Weddings you’re OK, but if you sound like Pauline Fowler (sorry Denise) then you’ve got a problem.

As they would say in Brooklyn fugedaboutit.

That means forget about it apparently.