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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!cires!nbires!ut-sally!riddle
From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Quack, quack, I'm an American
Message-ID: <88@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Oct-83 13:49:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.88
Posted: Tue Oct  4 13:49:26 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Oct-83 15:52:23 EDT
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 19

I just want to corroborate Steve Dyer's comment about the godawful
American accent.  Although I certainly wasn't as isolated from Americans
as Steve was on his Poland trip, I spent last year studying in Germany
and doing my best to avoid other Red-White-&-Blue folks.  The combina-
tion of the "sensory deprivation" involved in hearing twenty times as
much German as English and my attempts to stear clear of the roving
mobs of American exchange students (they travel in packs, see) meant
that the sound of an American accent at thirty yards made my skin crawl
and put my nervous system on Fight or Flight status.  After ten months
of this I was beginning to wonder whether I would be emotionally
impaired for life ("Whatever you do, don't talk to the patient in cell
17 in English -- one false vowel and he has a seizure"), but a visit
from my girlfriend and a week in London helped me make the adjustment.
I only live in fear of flashbacks.                             :-)

                                 -- Prentiss Riddle
                                    {ihnp4,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
                                    riddle@ut-sally.UUCP