What would cause a person to speak in different accents randomly?

NoneYa@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 66 points –

There’s this woman I work with who seems to have her accent change randomly.

Some days she sounds like a typical American accent, then others she sounds like she has a Caribbean accent and others she sounds like she has a French accent, and others she sounds like she has an Arabic accent. Other days her voice is super messed up, like she’s been screaming.

Beyond her voice changing, she is an odd person to work with. She’s gotten into public, loud vocal spats with other coworkers even in meetings. She was very nice and sweet with me when I first had to interact with her but that all changed when I made an honest mistake one time and she went off on me and wouldn’t stop until I ignored her and now I just keep my distance unless I have to. Others have said similar things about her as well.

I’ve wondered if maybe she has a personality disorder, but I would think that would also cause her to not do her job correctly?

I don’t know, I’m just curious. This is something I’ve never experienced before and wondering what this could be.

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I speak with an american accent in my academic circle because everyone there is super american.

But in my friend group I let my half-aussie half-british accent go free.

Also speak that american accent with most strangers since they have usually learnt american english and will probably understand me better.

I speak perfect German, in fact my German is better than my Russian (which my parents taught me). I cannot say one word or read a sentence in German to my parents without the heaviest Russian accent. It's insanely hard to turn off and I have to concentrate on every word if I want to pronounce it normally. But the default is the most heavy and cliched Russian accent.

Code switching is pretty common, but this sounds like something different since she's using different accents with the same people.

Also speak that american accent with most strangers since they have usually learnt american english and will probably understand me better.

I love it when I meet Asians who learned English from the English. Same goes for black people from England. The accents are so unexpected that they sound really appealing and cool.

Same. I met a German girl at a hostel in Los Angeles once when I was young and her English was so perfect and her accent so thoroughly American that she had to show me her passport for me to believe she was German.

It was all fun. I had kinda forgotten about that little incident until this thread. :)

With the kind of demogaphic on lemmy sure. But trust me speaking in a thick half aussie half british boganesque accent anywhere with non-uni educated people in the US gets you blank stares of confusion. I once had an old lady at wallmart yell at me too speak english or leave the country 😂