jerryc41 wrote:
I believe it. People from northern USA have trouble understanding people from southern USA, and vice versa. It's the same with people in different parts of England.
I knew a woman who was a Spanish teacher, and she gave us a demo of the differences between different Spanish speakers. Amusing.
In summers of '74 and '75, I worked for a company that made textile machinery. Four of us college students had been assigned to repair/refurbish some British-built open-end spinning frames with new (better) parts. We worked with two Brits, one from Accrington, and one from Oldham, near where a couple of our plants were located. I worked out of the Easley, SC, plant. Another of our mechanics was from Pakistan.
The mill we were working in was in Enoree, SC. Enoree is about 8 miles Southeast of Woodruff, which is essentially 8-miles South of nowhere. The folks in that little town had been there for about six generations, many decended from Irish potato farmers who came over during the great potato famine of the mid-1850s. Others were African American descendants of plantation slaves.
We all spoke English, but... The native SC folks spoke what is commonly known in SC as "Cracker Irish", an accent unique to upstate SC where those Irish folks settled. The Pakistani sounded half-British, half-Indian, as he had learned English in India at a British school. The Brits, of course, spoke with working class Northern England accents (quite removed from anything heard in London or anywhere else).
SOMEHOW, I could understand all of them, so they had me play translator. Mostly it was word usage and accent translation. "Ah owent lak thot. 'An me that spannih" meant, "Hand me the wrench so I can fix this." Or, it meant, "Dang! Ghee mee dat dare wree-unch."
I learned a LOT about patience and tolerance and the true meaning of communication that summer! Also, I learned I needed to study harder so I wouldn't have to work in a mill again. Our summer jobs paid more than what some of the mill workers made, and they had been there 30 to 40 years! Somehow, though, they could afford fifty cent PBR or "Bud water" at the local dirt floor tavern.
I WISH I could have taken my camera on the job site there. The photos would have been amazing.