Last week I was in the bookshop talking to the guy behind the counter, to whom I was giving some dvd footage I had shot of the Harry Potter event in July (I’m a very slow editor), when a guy in a cyclist’s helmet, who had been struggling to write a cheque (in this day and age), looked up and interrupted. “Potter?” he rasped, accentuating the double t in what appeared I believe was an attempt at a British accent. Slightly off-ended (if not exactly offended), I shot him a quick look and carried on. He said it again in case I hadn’t heard him the first time, and I nearly responded “Malfoy?” but chose to ignore. He stayed quiet and went back to writing his cheque (they spell it ‘check’ here, you know). After a few minutes he approached me and apologized, he hadn’t meant to make fun of my accent, he was trying to compliment it. Oh, ok, I replied with as little rat’s arse as I could find. But this was not the first time, and it will not be the last, that I will be complimented in such a way. You see, it is apparently socially acceptable – even compulsory – for many Americans to affect a British accent whenever they meet someone from across the pond.
And they really don’t mean to offend – I think they find it charming, or quaint, or perhaps they think we will applaud their efforts – they are after all trying to be like me, I should be honoured. The thing is, if a Brit were to do the same, they would very likely be doing it to take the piss. An American however might not understand why it’s greeted with cold British sarcasm, such as recently in Sacramento when I congratulated the woman in the saltwater taffy shop for her incredible Australian accent (“I thought Bea Smith herself had walked in” ). But it wouldn’t be ok for them to, for example, imitate a Chinese accent, or respond to their German customers with Fawtlyesque attempts at humourous Teutonic mimicry.

I wouldn’t mind, but I feel like I’ve developed a British accent since living here. I would not have pronounced any of the t’s in ‘Potter’ before, they would all be washed away in a downpour of glottal stops. I’ve spoken to other CA-based Brits, and they too have been the victims of spontaneous imitation.

Apart from the hilarious faux-brits, there are the ones who make requests for certain words. Sometimes I happily oblige, especially when some Cockney rhyming slang or other comes to mind (although I was out with Tel once, and he kept asking girls about their thre’penny bits). Sometimes I feel like a tired actor, sick of repeating a catchphrase; one time, a shop-girl at a supermarket checkout asked me to say ‘bloody’. “Why?” I asked. “Oh I just love it when you guys say ‘bloody’! It’s so cool!” My first thought was to react with a tirade of classic Watling Avenue vocabulary – everything but ‘bloody’ – but I just politely refused, sorry, I just want my green beans and my milky way, thanks. I think I know how Harry Potter feels now.

Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully