Frequently Asked Irish Question #24
This question I am frequently asked in America, simply because I am Irish, is one of the most stupid.
Though not the most stupid Irish question
Typically it occurs when somebody hears me speak for the first time, notes the accent and, after clarifying that I am Irish, then asks me:
Do You Know What They Do In Ireland?
Of course it’s not a true question, it’s really just a way to phrase, Let me tell you what they do in Ireland. Still though, we have already established that I am actually from Ireland, so it is strange behaviour.
As such I prefer to treat it as a true question, for which I have a whole selection of answers I pick from.
Question: Do you know what they do in Ireland?
Possible Answers:
• No, I’ve no idea. I was distracted for thirty years.
• No I don’t. I wanted to know but I got caught up in reading a book. On America as it happens.
• I don’t, sorry. I didn’t notice very much and when I asked my parents they wouldn’t tell me.
• I used to, but when you apply for a Green Card the immigration authorities take that stuff from you.
• I haven’t a notion. I’ve often wondered though, because the Irish events in town give the impression that whatever they do over there, it’s fun. Possibly too much fun.
• Wait there; I’ll phone my siblings. They’ll know; they have Irish accents as well.
• I do yeah. I didn’t used to, but funny enough I was out last week and I met an American at a bar who told me.
Truth be told the list I pick my answers from is much longer, but it doesn’t matter what answer I choose, because my questioner always follows up by telling me what they do in Ireland.
Or at least by telling me what somebody in Ireland did when the questioner was on vacation there. Or maybe something they read somewhere. Or something somebody read somewhere.
Other Frequently Asked Irish Questions:
• #18: What’s With You Irish And All This Guilt Stuff?
• #22: You Travel By Train In Ireland, Don’t You?
• #21: Do You Have Snow in Ireland, Real Snow
• All Frequently Asked Irish Questions
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
And what would the top 10, 5 or 7.86 things, they think/know/believe are done in Ireland, be then?
You could always say’ I know what they don’t do and that’s ask such ridiculous questions’
Assume you will do follow on post with what we do. Otherwise give them a copy of Ross OCarrollKellys guide to south dublin, should suffice.
Japers, it’s getting like Reality TV where I have to do challenges, and in the style of Family Fortunes too (that’s Family Feud if you’re American).
Conor, you’re very negative. Old age?
The first half of your suggested response I think I’ll use, though.
And Yes I’ll do the follow-up post - that was what I was alluding to in the answers I didn’t list i.e. they were all guesses at what I was about to be told.
But I’m not good with deadlines, so don’t go holding your breath, as Kiki Dee said.
How awful. I’ve never heard this particular brand of ignorance before, but I’ve certainly heard the one in your link where people pass the verdict on the Irish by accent and name.
Sigh.
Many Americans have their head up their ass.
Actually, to this day, one of the funniest questions ever asked me came from a co-worker claiming to be a qualifed attorney. I know his question was serious as he’d had a couple of brews and that’s what it took to pluck up the courage to ask:
“Do other countries think that Americans have accents?”
I chuckled, which upset him, as he thought it a serious question.
“Yes, they do…” I told him, but then I learned that it wasn’t a question afterall - it was a license for him to tell me that all the rest of the world had accents and Americans didn’t.
His rationalization of this boiled down to the fact that the U.S is the center of all creation so therefore, everything else was a variation. (Foreign policy anyone?)
“Well then, what do they think of our accent…”
It went very quickly downhill from there as I learned that people often really don’t want to hear the answers to questions they pose.
In response to Brettski -
If your attorney friend thinks Americans have no accent, then he has certainly never traveld to rural Georgia, upstate Maine or anywhere in the Lone Star State or Oklahoma.
I’d be willing to bet there are as many “internal’ accents in this country (based on region alone and not national origins of immigrants) to outnumber those of other countries.
Going further, the smart money is betting your attorney friend has never ventured beyond the limits of the Kansas City “metro.”
To everyone else in the world -
Sorry my fellow Yanks are such jackasses (and my apologies for casting aspersions on jackasses). But that’s what happens when you live a life with cultural blinders on. I’m doing my best to help educate the Irish-American ones, but a fella can only do so much.
You know, in all honesty, I tell that story for entertainment value first. I have similar stories, while living in the U.K, for example, of folks asking me if we had running water/electricity in New Zealand yet. And, ignorance of accents is universal. A fair bell-curve majority of non-American English speakers, whom I’ve met on overseas travels (including my home country) imagine that Americans all talk like the actors on Dukes of Hazard. That too makes me chuckle in the same vain as my previous story. I hear Kiwis when I go home attempting an American accent, and it’s as terrible as Mid-Westerners attempting to mock my own when I speak to them. Even the majority of the BBC’s attempts make me cringe.
Travel is certainly the key as Pete pointed out – and in the case of the U.S, the geographical size often makes if prohibitive to exposure and conducive to isolationism. Texas is the size of France for gods sake, and in generations to come, I suspect that regional accents will start to be classified as dialects as they are in the U.K. and elsewhere. There is such a breadth of variety here, that most Americans will probably never leave their country as traveling across a single State can take as much as 10 hours. In 10 hours you could see the ¾ of the North Island of New Zealand.
The fascination that Mid-Westerners have with (foreign) accents is one of pure curiosity. They do, however, insist that they have a “neutral” (American) accent, and quantify it by quoting that news announcers from around the U.S are sent here to “flatten-out” their accents.
You will get some resistance to that theory from the Voice-Over community – and anyone who has even dabbled in that field will tell you that Mid-Westerners do indeed have an accent and that that accent carries with it a certain perception from other Americans - on the coasts in particular. Not at all unlike the perception Mid-Westerners themselves have of a Southern accent.
I have a certain fondness for all accents and dialects – excepting of my own, so apologies for the long post. I think it’s part of “the spice” and, I guess too that that’s what makes that grass look so green…