“You don’t sound like a northerner.”
This, the comment of a colleague upon learning where I was raised.
“Well, I have lived down south all my adult life,” I reply.
That’s approaching thirty years now.
But I suspect there’s another reason for my barely-detectable accent.
That’s the speech deficit that characterised most of my youth.
Indeed, even now, I’m not the most talkative of people.
For all of my adult life, I have been a writer more than a speaker.
I can express myself at length in the written word, but often retreat to silence in company.
The widespread transition to video calling in the workplace has been a game changer in many ways.
A tool of liberation, changing the dynamic of conversations.
Certainly, I find myself more expressive and lucid, better able to express myself.
And so it is that I emerge from my shell less a northerner, more a product of my workplace.
Even our kids no longer make fun of my accent. It seems I’ve learned to speak properly at last.
Last modified: 4 May 2024
