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To an England-born person now making his home in Northern California (PG), some extreme American accents would also be "foreign". Indeed, in idiomatic English,

by gojomo 13y ago

To an England-born person now making his home in Northern California (PG), some extreme American accents would also be "foreign". Indeed, in idiomatic English, "foreign" doesn't necessarily mean "from another country" but can also mean "from another place/region" or even just "strange and unfamiliar". (I'd bet a sensitive-enough analysis would show that even North American accents "foreign" to northern California have a very slight disadvantage in the bay area startup community. The tiniest of things can send signals of mutual-understanding and shared-goals, fairly or not.) Focusing on the "non-United-States" sense of "foreign", in order to take offense here, is thus yet another example of why a shared, subtle, native-like understanding of the nuances of language is so important. Appreciating the whole range of senses of "foreign" makes it easy to interpret the PG quote sympathetically, as being about practical comprehension. Focusing on just the primary sense of 'foreign', as if the word only meant "other-country-origin", leads to time wasted on misunderstandings and taking-offense.

chilldream 13y ago
I think most Americans would regard different regions of the US "not foreign" and British or Australian accents as "foreign". This is entirely justified. Those of us who grew up in areas with nonstandard American accents grow up with enough American media to know what Americans are "supposed to" sound like. While there is still some regional variation, there is no place I know of in the US where it's socially acceptable for an educated person to speak in a way that educated Americans from other regions would have any trouble understanding them. In fact, it's quite the opposite; the strongest American accents tend to mark you as a member of one of the lower classes. As a result most of us either eliminate our accent as much as possible or learn how to switch as needed (as philwelch below pointed out). The bar to get past the prejudices of other educated Americans is so high that we get past the point of comprehensibility by default. Someone from another country doesn't have the same influences. An adult from an outside English-speaking country may not be able to sound American simply because they've never tried. That's not going to be the case for someone who grew up here, even for an unusual value of "here". People who are focusing on the "non-United-States" sense of "foreign" are reading the statement as it was meant.

by gojomo 13y ago

chilldream 13y ago

I think most Americans would regard different regions of the US "not foreign" and British or Australian accents as "foreign". This is entirely justified. Those of us who grew up in areas with nonstandard American accents grow up with enough American media to know what Americans are "supposed to" sound like. While there is still some regional variation, there is no place I know of in the US where it's socially acceptable for an educated person to speak in a way that educated Americans from other regions would have any trouble understanding them. In fact, it's quite the opposite; the strongest American accents tend to mark you as a member of one of the lower classes. As a result most of us either eliminate our accent as much as possible or learn how to switch as needed (as philwelch below pointed out). The bar to get past the prejudices of other educated Americans is so high that we get past the point of comprehensibility by default. Someone from another country doesn't have the same influences. An adult from an outside English-speaking country may not be able to sound American simply because they've never tried. That's not going to be the case for someone who grew up here, even for an unusual value of "here". People who are focusing on the "non-United-States" sense of "foreign" are reading the statement as it was meant.