On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:15:08 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:
: On 2013-03-14 21:02:40 -0700, Rob said:
: Sitting in a restaurant in Switzerland a group of Japanese were in to
: dine. The waiter spoke German (Swiss dialect) so in this situation they
: were communicating in broken English, funniest thing I've seen for a
: long time of course I knew what they were saying and understood the
: conversation but I don't think either understood each other.
:
: You should try that with a cousin and his wife from Tennessee. My poor
: wife who was born in Cheltenham, UK, sat through three days of
: conversation, politely nodding her head without understanding a word
: spoken.
: ...and cousin D.M. and his wife Stella were convinced they were
: speaking English. I seriously doubt that anybody who lived outside of a
: ten mile radius of their home would believe that.

I always laugh when I hear stories like that, because as a child of northern
parents who grew up in the south, I can switch seamlessly among several
northern and southern dialects and understand pretty much all of them. But
enough people say that they find southern accents incomprehensible that I have
to believe them.

Bob