Foreign Accent Syndrome Audio

[Grant Barrett]

For those who haven't heard her yet, the BBC World Service program
Outlook yesterday featured the woman who accidentally lost her American
accent and now sounds oddly British. The audio is available in Real
Audio format, and the segment starts roughly at the 28-minute mark.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/ram/outlook_tue.ram

That audio will disappear in a week, so invoking Fair Use, I've put up
an excerpt of the show in MP3 format (variable-rate, mono, 5.3MB, 11
minutes):

http://www.americandialect.org/BBC_Outlook_ForeignAccentSyndrome.mp3

There's also an impressionist on the show whose interview is
intertwined with that of the FAS woman; she speaks in the beginning and
the end of the segment. He is noticeably skeptical, as she seems to
have made some effort to pick up British usages. During the interview,
she says "right roll ready," (at the eight-minute mark) which both the
host and the impressionist immediately recognise as very English. She
also uses "wee" (in "wee little toddler," triple prize-winner for
redundancy), "shan't," and what sounds like a possessive "me" (as in
"me mum" or more like, "me mim"), all where an American likely
wouldn't.

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at americandialect.org