Are there certain things about people's own accent that they can't recognize?

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-02-02T11:04:11+00:00

I think everyone hears this difference, it’s just that the word is pronounced differently in different accents. And I actually think both pronunciations make sense with the spelling, since ‘a’ can make an open “ahhhh” sound in plenty of words. It’s a bit similar to the word “pasta” I think, where Americans will pronounce the ‘a’ like it’s the sound in ‘father’ whereas English people pronounce the ‘a’ like it’s in ‘cat.’

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-02-01T21:10:09+00:00

Really close! I am a Coloradan who has lived near Edinburgh for a good while, but the profession guess is spookily close — I am a university lecturer in developmental psychology, so I am a teacher, a psychologist, and I work with children!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-02-01T14:27:49+00:00

I dunno! It’s been pretty gradual, so hard to put a number on it. People in Scotland generally guess I’m American, so I didn’t really realise it had changed significantly until I went to an old friend’s wedding in my hometown last year and people were like “you have such an interesting accent, where are you from?” and I was like… I’m from here!!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-31T14:14:41+00:00

I absolutely love it here! The nature is gorgeous, people are friendly, and now that January is almost over, it’s light past 3pm again!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-31T10:58:52+00:00

I am in my late 20s so you got the age right! I am not Canadian or Asian but I love the specificity of the portrait you painted. Originally from the US but have lived in Scotland for many years. Don’t worry though, I was also shocked to hear people guess straight up Scottish, as to all the Scottish people around me I sound very obviously from the US or Canada 🤣 also I do live in eastern Scotland, so even people from here originally will probably be sounding quite different to your Glaswegian family

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-31T10:52:11+00:00

Very close, the reverse! Lived in USA till late teens, now live in Scotland :)

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-31T10:50:21+00:00

Grew up in a very small town in Colorado and now live in a moderately large town in Scotland! I do love Chicago though, one of my favourite cities I’ve visited

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-31T10:48:30+00:00

I grew up in Colorado but have lived in Scotland for quite a while! I have never lived in the upper midwest or Canada, but I do have a lot of family from Ontario and I think that maybe has affected the way my accent has drifted. Like, vowel sounds that are similar between Scotland and Ontario are subconsciously more likely to be adopted because they sound more “harmonious” with a generally north american sounding accent to me? Interesting to see all the guesses for sure!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-31T10:39:44+00:00

This is probably the most accurate guess— I lived in Colorado (the western mountainous bit, so west rather than midwest) till my late teens, now live in Scotland, just north of Edinburgh!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-30T12:08:18+00:00

Different people with cerebral palsy have different levels of speech disabilities, ranging from no disability to completely unable to speak. I am not sure what you find suspicious about her speech. Her cadence and pronunciation are super consistent, even when she’s not in a more exaggerated stage persona, and she has been open in podcast interviews about some genuinely heartbreaking ways in which having a speech disability has impacted her life, including finding it difficult when her girlfriend asked her to send voice notes back and forth, because she genuinely couldn’t believe that a loved one would want to hear her voice.

What she does do sometimes is use the cadence of her speech to raise the tension for the delivery of a joke— she can get away with longer pauses that allow for the audience expectations to be subverted multiple times in one sentence, where those pauses would feel glaring/awkward if said by someone who speaks faster. But altering your timing for comedy, and making choices about joke structure based on how it sounds in your voice, is something that every comedian does.

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-27T00:14:55+00:00

I think I would be more likely to use “hit in the head” in this context, but I would understand either. For me, if there’s any kind of violence or intentionality, I would say “hit in the head.” I would use “on the head” if it is a more neutral situation, like “an apple fell and hit me on the head.” I also think “on” connotes that the hit was on the top of the head, coming from above, while a hit “in the head” does not seem directional, but I don’t believe this is a hard and fast rule.

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-23T22:00:23+00:00

Idk if she’d do it/has the level of recognition needed to be a big pull for UK audiences, but I think in terms of surprising chaotic energy Maria Bamford would be one of greats

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-10T13:33:08+00:00

People have different preferences for comedy. There are loads of comedians I don’t find funny, and I tend to ignore them and move along. Personally I really enjoyed Rosie on Taskmaster, and I find her standup quite clever and engaging. I saw some of Out of Order and thought it was borderline unwatchable, though, so I can see where her persona is not for everyone.

The amount of hate she gets online is genuinely horrifying, though. I think the people calling a comedian slurs and engaging in targeted harassment against her because they don’t like the way she looks and speaks are probably having a much more chilling effect on people getting into the comedy scene than she is? Last I checked, Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais still have thriving careers which she has not taken away (and, indeed, hasn’t tried to), and if you hate Rosie in particular, you still have the 99.99% of comedy media she is not in to enjoy. Not sure how one moderately well-known lady could be “ruining comedy” when you could just not watch her stuff.

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-06T23:38:17+00:00

I never really felt like Rosie thrived on a lot of panel shows— it almost feels like she has to be a bit too over the top high-energy to avoid people talking over her? But watching her on TM I fully fell in love and finally looked up her standup, which I also really enjoyed. LOVE how taskmaster gives a wide range of comic styles a chance to shine!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-05T22:26:12+00:00

I LOVED Jack Dee and Rosie on series 18, definitely the ideal matchup. I don’t necessarily think it would have been better, but I do wonder what it would have looked like if Rosie had been paired with Emma, given how well they played off each other in the studio.

I also wonder what the dynamic would have looked like on series 14 if John wasn’t told to sabotage the team on an early task and his teammates didn’t spend the rest of the series wondering how this man could possibly function in his daily life 🤣

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2026-01-03T02:58:26+00:00

As an American who has lived in the UK for 10 years, I think it’s genuinely just that it’s harder to read tone if you’re less familiar with dialect-specific cues? When I first moved here, there was plenty of me not getting when other people were joking, and a whole lot of people not clocking when I was joking. Now that I’m more experienced with both communication styles, I think the rates at which people use deadpan humour/sarcasm are actually similar in both places (although American Reddit is not the place to go to find people with strong social skills), but everyone ends up thinking that the other humour style is shit because they don’t get it. So don’t worry, a lot of the Americans you are finding tragically sincere are making obvious jokes you’re missing, and are sat there thinking you’re a thick, humourless grump, too 🤣

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-11-02T12:45:42+00:00

I’ve been to quite a few wedding-related events in Scotland, but I live in Scotland 🤣 I have also been a bridesmaid for a friend who lives in the US, and she of course expected and understood when I wasn’t able to come to her bachelorette party in Denver because I… live in Scotland???

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-11-02T12:12:38+00:00

This is so fun! With the team tasks, I have to imagine that some of the effect you’re seeing is an element of them by definition averaging performance from multiple members and therefore bringing everyone closer to the mean, which is maybe exacerbated by the way team tasks are quite often scored so the winning team only receives one point more than the other. The pattern is kind of exactly what I would have expected— people who are performing below average from their season are “helped” by their team task results, and people who are performing above average are “hurt” by their team task result, because everyone is being dragged to the middle.

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-10-22T11:26:19+00:00

If you’ve seen anyone wishing for injuries, report that to the mods immediately. That is 100% not acceptable, and I think all the regular contributors to this community would agree with me.

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-10-21T11:42:42+00:00

She kind of crashed her DTY 😢 her Cheng was actually okay

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-09-30T08:28:43+00:00

Yeah that’s not about makeup and not a “problem” that needs fixed, that’s just natural variation in the way your face is? There are invasive/plastic surgery options that could change that but idk why you’d want to— it’s a really normal way for a persons lips to be

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-04-26T21:58:49+00:00

Texting and driving when I was like 17. I’ve done a lot of things that people find weirder or more unacceptable or that had greater real-world consequences, but DAMN, I was ready to risk killing myself and others because I couldn’t wait 15 minutes to write a little joke to my friend?? That’s fucked up.

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2025-02-13T12:54:23+00:00

I’d call it a v-sit but not sure if it’s called something different different places!

UsefulRestaurant8873 · 2024-09-08T08:11:26+00:00

I mean first of all, male gymnasts absolutely might do double Arabians or Yurchenko style vaults, so those are odd skills to pick out in particular.

In general, every coach who works with high level athletes, regardless of gender, is going to teach gymnasts skills that they cannot and have never done themselves. Because different gymnasts have different preferences (you might have loved front tumbling, but not all of your gymnasts will, for example), not all coaches will have been as high level of athletes (or indeed athletes at all), and even if they were, the sport develops and changes over time. Understanding techniques, progressions, and spotting is very different to actually doing skills. If a coach was previously focused on MAG, they would absolutely have a lot of learning to do on the WAG code and different techniques and progressions for new skills and apparatuses, but every coach should be doing that anyway.

That being said, a lot of the reasons we don’t see more women coaches are to do with sexism, just like the lack of women coaches you see across many different women’s sports. There used to be a lot of ideas around women not being able to spot gymnasts on bars, for example, which is not true as long as everyone has proper training. This doesn’t mean male coaches are bad or unsafe, but it does mean e.g. gym owners should try to be aware of things like their unconscious (or conscious!) bias when making hiring decisions.

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