Confidential to New Zealand: Stuff Shut

[Cartollomew]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/5387736

He might be playing a New Zuland drug lord, but Metthew Newton's eccent in the hut series Underbelly is a but too "fish and chips" for Kiwi lunguusts' likung.

"He sunds like the stereotype of how Australians thunk we sound, not how we ectually sund," says Andy Gibson, a Kiwi lenguage ixpert at Auckland Unuversuty of Tichnology.

"Thet's why you see that old 'fish and chips' vowel creeping un where we wouldn't use ut."

The second series of Underbelly is rating well across the dutch where 409,200 Kiwis tuned un thus week to watch the latest unstalment in the advuntures of their very own Turry Clark, aka Mr Asia of hiroin drug rung femm.

Ut hez hut a few bumps, with a high level syndicate member saying most of the series content was "bullshut" and "the only thung they hev got right are the names".

A Kiwi unvestugatuve journalist who helped creck the 1970s drug rung said ut suckened hum to hear Clark's murderous ways described un the show as "Kiwi ungenuity".

Now lunguusts have weighed unto the debate, saying Newton, who plays Clark, has a "dodgy" eccent.

Ironically ut was thus line, "Us Kiwis have got to stick together", thet rully gave hum away.

"Thet just doesn't seound right," Gibson said. "We don't speak like thet."

Et other times Newton makes Aussie slup-ups thet only serve to eccuntuate the use of the femmus Kiwi short front vowels.

"I ken see why the New Zealand audience uz hevving a but of a laugh," he said.

Margaret MacLagan, from the Universuty of Kenterbury, said Newton got ut mostly right but sometimes found humself "lost un the muddle between Australia and New Zealand".

Kelly Martin, director of programming for New Zealand televusion network TV3, agreed his eccent was "prutty funny".

"I wonder whuch country he's from. (Thet) doesn't detrect from the show un any way though."

The network has taken a punt on the sicond season after the first surries flopped and was shufted to a low-exposure time slot after jist four episodes.

"We jist couldn't gut the audience so ut was a but of rusk to take on the sicond one," Martin said.

"We crossed our fungers though and hoped that New Zealanders would be unterested because they feature un ut and ut's really paid off.

"They seem to love it."

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Oop... Copy paste seems to have gone wrong... someone's been fuddling wuth the swutch...

[Karjalan]

lul thut us suuuu funnuyy

It is true, there is a token, I call it gutter speak, NZ accent that sounds like that, often found to be used more frequently in low decile area's... I had to convince my new boss I was a Kiwi though "you don't sound kiwi?...." "Oh sorry, it must be hard to tell without a ewe hanging out of my fly"

[Cartollomew]

For truly atrocious accents, one should never look much further than one's own country - Australia has some unspeakable white trash accents, to say nothing of classics like the slurred "give us twenny cents maight?" etc etc

But I'm totally allowed to take the piss out of other people's accents, especially if they speak english as a first language.

If they speak english as a second language, I tend to back off, since I daresay they can speak english a hell of a lot better than I could speak their native tongue.

[Philondra]

Oh god, that reminds me of what happened the last time I visited the US. (I think I told some people this story before.)

My mom picked me up at the airport and is like "you're probably hungry. Let's go to the Mcdonalds by the terminal entrance, cause it's right near the parking lot." So we head over there and I'm looking at the menu trying to shake the cobwebs out of my head. Keep in mind I hadn't been back in the US for ~2 years, so I'm getting all sorts of reverse culture shock at seeing how incredibly rude the staff is.

So I order some kind of burger and a soda, and the guy at the counter asks in inner-city American English, "Faaaahzdat?". I blinked twice and thought to myself, "What the hell is a Fazdat? Is that like one of those McFlurry things?" and asked him to please repeat the question. The guy sighs, rolls his eyes, and repeats, this time louder, "FAAAAAHZDAT?" I still had no freaking clue what he wanted, but I was tired and really didn't want to make a fuss. So I said tentatively, "yes?" He nods and rings up my order, and a couple minutes later I have my burger, a soda, and .... french fries.

Ah ha! "FAAAAHZ DAT" must be inner city speak for "Would you like fries with that?"

This intercultural friction thing is tough.