Say That Again?

I find accents extremely challenging.  Especially when on the telephone.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re from Irelandor India, Scotland or Singapore, if you talk to me expect to hear a lot of,‘Sorry, could you repeat that please?’ So they do and I’m still none the wiser. At times it’s quite embarrassing. ‘Are you taking the Mickey?’ snarled one exasperated person at the otherend of my telephone earlier this week. 
A Londoner pronounces J as jay.  A Scott will say ji.  Or, depending on theregion, jee.  Earlier this week one Scotsman was telling mehis email address.  I wrote beale@blahblah.co.uk andread it back for confirmation.  ‘Och no,’said the disembodied voice, ‘it’s Beale.’ ‘Beale?’ I questioned.  ‘Beale!’came the reply.  ‘Beale?’ (meagain).  ‘Lassie ah seed BEALE...B...I...L...L.’  And then the dawn came up.
Mind you, spelling things doesn’t alwayshelp.  Another email address I happilysent off to air.haig@blahblah.  Seconds later it bounced back to me as afail.  Upon checking with the person theyexpressed puzzlement.  ‘Och howstrrrrange, it’s definitely air dothaig, air for Rrrrrobert.  Ah.  Or should I say arrr?
Having family in the North of England I’ve acquainted myself withcatching the booss yister-day, although chatting with my Italian in-laws wasinitially very challenging.  When I firstmet my mother-in-law I assumed she was still talking Italian.  I smiled politely and did lots of miming withmy hands while my husband snorted into his coffee cup.  Nowadays I have my mother-in-law sussed.  She simply leaves the last syllable offeverything.  So if she starts telling youabout somebody’s dort you know she’stelling you all about that person’s daughter. Telling me how she made one pasta dish was a doddle to translate.  Macarone,tomart, oyn, ricot, parmes.  Yum!
I remember the first time my parents met my in-laws.  We went out for a meal where the mothersdiscreetly kicked off their shoes under the table and began talking animatedly for twohours completely at cross-purposes.  Myin-laws were talking about beautiful Italy, my mother agreed that Israel wasindeed very lovely and asked what they thought of the beaches, and my father(who’s quite deaf) told them all about his new car to which my father-in-lawsaid he preferred to travel by plane.  ‘Tothe supermarket?’ asked my father.  ‘Ohyes, lots of supermercato,’ my father-in-law confirmed.  And when we left the restaurant, our mothershad odd shoes on.
So it’s not just me is it!