So I traveled to
Glasgow in the fall of 2000 in order to visit friends, hang out, etc. One idea I had for the trip was to take a
tape recorder, a cassette, and record all of my Scottish friends reciting some predetermined phrase, but with their best crack at an American accent. Unfortunately, I forgot the recorder. However, on telling my Glaswegian friends about the idea, the conversation quickly descended into bicker about whether one was less likely to find an American with a passable Scottish accent, or a Scot with a passable American accent
1. I wasn't overly concerned with the answer to that, though -- I know what Scottish kids sound like when they feign an American accent and I find it hilarious. I suggested that if the American accent was so simple they could just go ahead and demonstrate. They did, and was said certainly wasn't said in the manner of any American I've ever met. Then they challenged me to do the same, and what was suggested is one of the most bizarre cultural relics I've ever heard... allegedly a former marketing slogan for Irn-Bru (a drink I was somewhat familiar with) that puts all
Barbasol ads to shame:
Irn-Bru: it'll make you frisky, but it'll no' make you pregnant.
1My personal feeling on the matter is that the average Scot's impression of an American accent is less atrocious than the other way around, but finding a decent accent from either group is difficult. The typical Scot does an American accent by removing all inflection from the voice and drawling like nobody's business... Imagine a computer speaking through a lobotomized resident from Kentucky and you start to get an idea.