You know what’s weird? If you have an accent, even quite a small one, people assume that you must have a limited vocabulary. You have no idea how often I hear, “Oh, you know the word “efficient”? Wow!”
Even when people know that I have a PhD from Yale with a dissertation I wrote in English and that I have published an award-winning book of literary criticism in English, they still can’t help looking stunned when I say “rambunctious” or “outlandish”
I know somebody with a PhD in linguistics from a top-ranking school, and even this scholar can’t help expressing surprise when I use 3 – syllable words. And that’s after 8 years of knowing me.
It’s especially annoying when folks with those ugly South Carolinian or Bostonian accents assume that I must be an illiterate because of my accent.
Things are even worse for the native speakers of English from India or Africa. People tend to praise their “good English” in tones usually reserved for bright 5-year-olds. A colleague from India says people tend to raise their voices and enunciate VE-RY CLE-AR-LY whenever they hear her pronunciation. And telling them that she’s a native speaker of English doesn’t help.
By the way, this never happens when one speaks Spanish to Spanish-speakers. Unless your language skills are very limited, nobody treats you like an idiot because your pronunciation differs.
The cost of being admitted to a language community is vastly different for speakers of English and Spanish.
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