The Mynah Bird Roosts

For many more years than I care to recall, I might have had the most annoying habit in the universe.No, I didn't pick my nose or teeth in public and I have never once felt compelled to spit on a sidewalk...I did something worse: I was a mimic.It certainly presaged my days of international travel, when all I could do was look out at the world and dream of the possibilities, but I was a class-A mimic. The worst part of the whole thing was that I rarely realized I was doing it until someone, convinced I was making fun of them, would rebuke me for being rude and unsophisticated. Or, thankfully, my ever-vigilant mother would catch me before I made a complete ass of myself."What did you just say?" she'd ask."What do you mean?" I'd reply."Well, for the past twenty minutes you have been drawling on and on like someone raised in a log cabin in the backwoods of Mississippi or on a dirt farm in Texas. Since when has 'y'all' been part of your vocabulary? And, for that matter, why did you just tell your brother he was a 'good ole hoss?' What the hell is a 'hoss,' Patti?"Embarrassed, I would shut up.Later, when I was in my late teens, my father became quite close with an English family of the most noble genes. I would listen, entranced, as new words filtered across my mind and familiar ones were given the most glorious treatment with that wonderful, high-stepping, accent.Again, my mother stopped me."Um, Patti? What in the hell is a 'tipple?' Or, for that matter, why are you suddenly calling people 'wankers?' And did you just say 'thoust' to me?"I'd turn red."Who are you?" she'd demand. "Who has stolen my daughter and replaced her with Emily Bronte or Margaret Thatcher?"I think I finally stopped doing around the second or third month I was (finally! officially!) living in another country.In this case, it was northeastern Hungary circa 1998.Although a total of about ten people in the city where I lived spoke English (which was why I was there...to teach them this fine language), I immediately began mimicking their accented English words. I found it deeply romantic....until, of course, my boyfriend at the time pointed out that this could all be misconstrued as a little rude."Patti, is there a reason why you are suddenly talking like a lisping Russian field peasant?" he'd inquire."Why, what do you mean?" I'd ask."Well, for the past twenty minutes you've been mimicking George to the point where you sound like Dr. Zhivago and Joseph Stalin had a half-wit love child and implanted it in your body. It's a bit rude, don't you think? Why don't you just talk like...YOU?" he'd ask, flustered.Humiliated, I vowed never, ever to do that again. I watched my speech carefully for the next year and only adapted British English words (not accents, just words) when it got my point across better than American English words. And I stopped mimicking people.However, I did pause to consider why, exactly, I might have been doing this. At first I thought it was because I romanticized any and all things foreign and felt that the highest compliment to that love was to imitate it.This, in part, was true, but there was a bigger reason.And the reason was because I had absolutely nothing distinct about the way I spoke whatsoever. No accent, no charming drawl, no lilting speech, nothing.Raised in southern Connecticut, a state that has the distinction, like California and Delaware, of being populated by many people who have no discernible accent whatsoever, I was at a loss.Yes, years later I have had people tell me that I sound "a touch" like a New Yorker and that other people from northern Connecticut sound very much like Bostonians, but that wasn't good enough for me.I never wanted to be "a touch" like anyone or anything. I wanted an identity, I wanted to belong to a distinct group of people, easily identified by their speech. The fact that most Americans and some foreigners could tell I was from the northeastern part of the United States was not good enough for me. I didn't want a region...I wanted a damn state or a country.Still, I certainly did not want to give people the impression that I was being rude in my mimicry. So, with the exception of modifying the way I pronounced certain words depending on the country I was in and who the former colonial overlords were, I stuck to my own way of speech.My own very boring way of speech.That is, of course, until circa March 2010.This marks the date that I became Rocky Balboa in female form. And, to be honest, I am not sure I am going back to my old ways ever again.Mind you, other than Connecticut, the state I have spent the most time in is Pennsylvania. At this point, I collectively have logged just as many years in the Philadelphia region as I did in southern Connecticut. And no, not once during all of those years did I attempt to adopt the very distinct Philadelphia accent. I guess, because I had spent so much time there, I just didn't see it as exotic enough.However, when I was deeply homesick while living in Uganda, all I wanted was Philadelphia. I love this city and its people in an almost over-the-top way. I know it is because some of the very best years of my life were spent here. My closest friends are all from Philadelphia, my most significant (although not always good) relationships were/are with men from Philadelphia, and I just love the way the city feels.I'm not disparaging New York or Boston, two other fantastic East Coast cities, but I just like Philly the best. And I'm not budging on that opinion.When fate was kind enough to land me back in the Philadelphia area after my seventeen month adventure in Uganda, I ran back to it with open arms. I think I was even a bit breathless, like being reunited with a long, lost lover.And, of course, my boyfriend, Chas, is from Philadelphia. I think I fell in love with his thick northeastern Philadelphia accent (one I had never really paid any attention to before) before I fell in love with him.And, around March of this year, I caught myself.I was out in the backyard with Chas doing some minor yard work when I realized that I was mimicking him. That I was following him around like an anxious Mynah bird trying to mold my own speech to his. I heard words coming from my mouth that I had never once considered using before and I heard what had happened to any word that contained an 'e' followed by one of more 'r's'. Plus, people from Philadelphia can outdo just about any military man or woman I have ever met in the liberal employ of the f-bomb. I had gotten fairly tainted working with the military for years but had managed to almost completely lose that word from my vocabulary over the proceeding seventeen months in the face of the much more polite and proper Ugandans.Still, once here again, words like "yo," had suddenly supplanted the much more proper "Hello" or even "Hey," as part of a greeting or an attempt to gain someone's attention. Such verbal gems as "knucklehead" were now in my once untainted speech. Calling someone a "bum" became common. And, the worst to my mind, I was using "at" at the end of sentences to clarify the location of things. It had gotten very, very bad."Yo, where is that knucklehead dog of ours at?" I would ask Chas. "What a fucking bum!"I stopped short, just barely, of saying "yous" and "ain't" but I was rapidly sliding downhill.And the 'e' and 'r' combinations? Well, let's just say I had a hard time with them in the beginning but have begun to slowly morph into that way of talking too, if only to make myself understood.Early on, however, Chas and I had a very confusing conversation."What do you think of Kerry?" he asked me.Of course, in Philadelphia-speak, when an 'e' is followed by an 'r,' it becomes a 'u.'"What kind?" I asked. "I love Indian food in general but some of those sauces are a little spicy for me," I concluded.He looked at me sideways, undoubtedly trying to discern if it was the last remnants of malaria or whether I truly might be a half-wit."Yo, what the fuck are you talking about? Indian food and sauces? I asked what you thought of Kerry...you know, the bartender?" he said.Oh, K-e-r-r-y...not curry. My bad.Or, when Chas is going golfing in Delaware or Maryland, he takes a "furry" to get there.You know, the "furry" that travels across the water to get a passenger from Point A to Point B?Most Philadelphians also do not modify or add subtlety to anything. Something is either good or bad. Words like "fine" and "well" do not exist in their vocabularies. Chas is never feeling "fine" and things are never going "well." It's either "good" or "bad" (and, on occasion, "nasty") but I have never heard him use anything more subtle than that.The word "ignorant" also stands in for many different occasions. If you are rude, slow, in a bad mood, annoying, or just plain mean...you are ignorant. It always means something bad, the severity of the badness all depends on whether the f-word is placed in front of it.If you are "fucking ignorant," then you might as well just curl up and die because you are truly irredeemable at that point.Same goes with the term "bum," which truly reminds me of Rocky Balboa movies. If someone is a bit of a lazy and unmotivated person, they are a "bum (also a term for a homeless person in American English)." If they have done you wrong, personally or professionally, they are a "dirty bum." However, like ignorant, if the f-word is put in front of "bum," all bets are off. You are a social miscast, you simply do not deserve anyone's attention at all...ever...unless they are going to kick your ass for you "bum-ness."Oddly, for all of the liberal usage of the word "fuck," the name of God is rarely, very rarely, ever taken in vain. I think it comes from some basic working class superstitions all mixed up with latent Catholicism, Protestantism, or whatever-ism is going on in Philly...but taking God's name in vain is a definite no-no.For example, I have never, ever heard Chas say, "'Goddamn it" or "Oh my God." Nor does he put "God" in front of "bless you," when someone sneezes. Once, early on, when I tripped over something and stubbed my toe, I carelessly uttered, "Jesus Christ!" I looked over to see Chas staring at me in abject shock before quickly darting his gaze over to the Mass cards which decorate every picture frame in our home. He seemed to be uttering a silent apology to Jesus...no doubt telling Him what an ignorant knucklehead bum I was.Also, getting away from speech for a moment, this incident brings up another interesting factor in dealing with many working-class and middle-class Philadelphians that had somehow slipped my attention in the nearly two decades of living there.Superstition.Philadelphians are very, very ("vury, vury") superstitious people. Particularly when it comes to God and their money. I have already mentioned the Mass card thing (you know, those cards they hand you at funerals that have a picture of Jesus or a saint on the front and a prayer and the name of the recently departed on the back?) but it gets even more bizarre.Take, for instance, the time I accidentally washed Chas's wallet. He was furious, of course, and I don't really blame him...it was rather ignorant of me....but he was not angry for the reasons I assumed.I thought, stupidly, that he would be upset that I had laundered his money, his credit cards, and his social security card. Hey, maybe even be a bit pissed off that I had washed a few pictures of his kids...but no, that was not the real problem, the real transgression. The REAL problem was that I had washed Jesus."My Mass cards!" he screamed. "You washed my Mass cards (yes, they are found in both wallets and picture frames around these parts), I have had some of those Mass cards for twenty years," he moaned, rescuing a soggy image of St. Paul from the washing machine.I, ignorantly, tried to make a joke out of it."Look, Babe, it's OK. I will lay Jesus and St. Paul out in the sun on the porch and they'll be good as new by tomorrow. Maybe the printing will be a bit faded but....""Stop it!" he yelled. "Don't say those things!"And, for the next 24 hours, until St. Paul and Jesus dried out, Chas crept around the house waiting for the lightening bolt to strike. He made sure to steer well-clear of me.The money thing is also unusual. For example, many people from Philadelphia absolutely do not trust banks. Despite the fact that Chas and most of his friends are far too young to ever have experienced the Great Depression...well, it might as well have happened yesterday.Money is kept under beds, under floor boards, in the ceiling...anywhere but in the bank. The bank is seen as a necessary evil for occasional bill-paying when some of the money is secreted out of its location in the house and deposited (in the exact amount of the check to be written) in the bank but, otherwise, banks are viewed as Evil.The fact that I carry very little cash on my person (my own weird superstitions gained from years of traveling to places where one can easily be relieved of one's cash) and pay for everything with my bank debit card horrifies Chas.Never mind the fact that Chas, when not paying in cash, conducts almost all of his financial transactions online...a markedly less secure place than the bank. It doesn't matter. Banks are Evil and that is the end of the story. Money is either cash money or money that can be spent online, on the ever-so-secure Internet, but money never, ever goes into the bank. That is where The Man is waiting.This superstition, of The Man (aka the Government), also lends itself to finer points. For instance, the fact that someone is unemployed or having a hard go of things does not ever reflect on that person's character. Sure, if you're a mass murder or someone who washes Jesus every now and then, you might be held at fault but, mostly, the fact that The Man finally caught up with you is through no fault of your own. Life is hard...we need to stick together...and so goes the philosophy.Unless, of course, you are a bum or you are ignorant. Then, by God, all bets are off.In the beginning, when I was reacclimating, I found Chas's Philadelphia-isms charming, worthy of complete adoration. That's why I mimicked them.Then, about five months into the whole relationship, I made the one huge faux pax you NEVER make with people from Philadelphia: I tried to correct his speech.He tolerated if for about a week and then we had an arguement."Look, this is how I talk, OK? I can, as you have pointed out, talk differently when I need to be around rich and ignorant bums, or people who will judge you about that because of me, but when I am not around them, I like to talk like me...I am comfortable talking like ME...is that such a problem?" he asked.Ashamed, I admitted that no, it was not a problem at all. It was actually something I loved about him."Good," he declared. "Because you are freaking my friends out with your six-syllable words. We all can figure out what they are eventually and, hey, I even KNOW what they mean because I went to college, but why don't you take a break and find a few synonyms for words like 'perturbed?' No one really understands that one anyway..." he said."Perturbed is not a six-syllable word," I corrected.Eyebrows raised, Chas said, "Yes, I understand that. But it is a word that is haughty and annoying. So, given that, why can't you just say 'upset,' or 'flustered,' or 'uncomfortable?'" he countered.Fully reprimanded, I stopped. I didn't stop using my six-syllable (or two-syllable) words completely, of course, because I adore language and words, but I did stop acting like an ignorant bum, so to speak.The most amusing part of this whole turn of events is that my language overlord, the woman who would not only constantly chastise me for mimicking but also correct my own English to ensure that it was both proper and expansive...my mother...has been dating a guy from West Philadelphia for over a year.She is completely in love but went through the same thing I did, sort of, except that she never lived in Philly so this came as a whole new territory for her.By the time she encountered it, I had accepted it. But the conversation was funny, nonetheless."He just said 'yous," she whispered. "And he says 'ain't' all the time....""Who cares?" I suggested."Patti, PATRICIA, instead of saying beautiful, like it's one flowing word, he says, 'Beau-TEE-ful' like a bad caricture of someone...or something...I don't know...from the mob, from a movie, maybe like from the Rocky movies or something...I just don't get it," she continued.Knowing where she was going, I volunteered,"He doesn't speak like that around people who are not from Philly or people that he feels that are important for you, you, to impress, right?" I asked."Exactly! How does he do that? How can he go from perfect English to, well, 'city' English just like that? Why can't he speak one way all the time?" she flustered."He's a mimic," I informed her. "He can mimic people but, at the end of the day, he has found that he is most comfortable in his own skin...with 'you' and 'yous'...so don't be ignorant," I concluded.I hung up the phone to see Chas looking at me thoughtfully."She's perturbed, ain't she?" he inquired.Very much so, I agreed."You birds are amusing," he opined.Yes, we are. We are indeed.