You know, it's one thing to hear about a phenomenon, but nothing beats experiencing the real thing. Friends who had recently returned from Ghana had complained incessantly about the rise and rise of the LAFA. Huh? That was my initial reaction too. It stands for "Locally Acquired Foreign Accent". You see, as part of some Ghanaians' haste to embrace anything and everything foreign, the beautiful Ghanaian accent has fallen victim to tragic butchering. As a linguist (3 years of uni is worth it just to be able to say that. Yay me! Lol), I'm well aware of the fluidity of accents and how easy they adapt and merge. However, there is a patent difference between somebody who has lived in a different culture and has therefore adopted (consciously or unconsciously) the local accent, and a person who has never stepped foot outside the country for any length of time.

I remember when we we in our teens, Friday's Afro and I would call this an "Aferican" accent and it's sad to see the phenomenon has not died out but seems to be under going some kind of revival. Originally the property of the Ashanti "bogas", the LAFA is thriving everywhere. In my experience, most Ghanaians speak excellent English but I can't count the amount of times I've heard people apologising for their English merely because they don't possess some kind of foreign accent. What is so special about a foreign accent? What are the thought processes that lead a person to think it's normal to fake an accent? Can anybody out there enlighten me?

On the flipside, since my arrival in Ghana, I've become a victim of what I call "accent-ism". I've been introduced to people who are perfectly pleasant until I open my mouth. The English accent provokes a total and complete shut down in pleasantries. Often the person will adopt a look suggesting they have just smelled something bad (it's not my armpits, I checked...) and even Stevie Wonder can see the "wo ye too-known" look that passes across the face. I'm by no means suggesting that everybody has been like this but I'm beginning to see that the accent war goes both ways. Now what kind of fuckeries is that?

To see a fantastic LAFA at work, check out the link below. You have been warned...
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=100986489923283

Now what experiences of the LAFA or accent-ism have you experienced?

hahahahahaha! I went to Dubai at the beginning of June to y'kno let off some of that exam steam! And while there our wonderful hotel organised trips and excursions everyday, to the beach in the morning, and 'shopping' in the afternoons. 'Wow' we thought, 'all those famous luxury Dubai malls, you know the ones with ski slopes inside and 5 star (freezing cold) cinemas...' we couldn't wait. So Monday rolls around and instead of naming the place we would be going shopping, all we were told is " yes, its very good place, nice, discount shopping yes good place!" Hmmm, I don't know about anyone else but I was envisaging a mixture of Primark and Poundland, boy what i got was a mixture of Deptford Market, an 'English for foreign learners' class and a bin!

I'm not actually joking when we got there people from our hotel were backing away from the lurid green shopfront where we were greeted by a massive poster saying " RUB-A-DUB DUB CLEAN YOUR TOTS IN THE TUB " accompanied by a Rubberduckzilla monstrosity, weird! And it just got weirder, rows and rows of terribly-made cheap clothes next to prams next to packets of crisps, and the whole while a bearded man following you round the nighties trying to make you take a trolley.
After our initial bout of nausea and convulsions, we decided to look around and thank God we did. You know when you go to other countries you find some strange engrish emblazoned across tee-shirts etc, these were the worst i have ever seen! Once in Martinique I did see a top that said 'Music looks at me PHARD' huh? what?
Anyway, back to Nine Town (as this Oasis in the Emirate Desert was called) the tops ranged from the depressing - a top with a 20 line poem about holding your dog's paw when the time comes to put him down- to the spiritual -incomplete inaccurate lyrics from a Hillsongs song- to the retro- a beautiful piece with I ROCK RUFF AND STUFF WITH THE AFRO PUFF across it- Yes yes Lady of Rage!

Eurgh! the shop was disgusting, afterwards we were thrown into a tro-tro (van/minibus) with about 25 Iranians who found our dark skin and our English extremely funny, horrific, one of them was making a video of us! Lord have mercy!
Not a minute too soon we were returned to our hotel where we wept with shock and relief, it was over, Nine Town was over. Oh and did I forget to mention the Iranians bags were bulging with tat from Nine Town, yuck!

Now most people who know me know that I have a somewhat gentle obsession with misspelt signage. I have a love/ hate relationship with this because although they may provide me with many instances of unexpected mirth, I can't get over the sheer laziness of having a misspelt sign outside your shop. How can you expect me to take you and your business seriously when you're offering me an "intinet cafe"? What kills me even more is that nobody manages to spot these mistakes from the owners, to the people who put up the signs, etc. etc. Some may say I'm being pedantic and I probably am but come on! We live in the age of spellcheck don't we? Lol. Being a linguist (ahem!), one of the first things you're taught in any foundations class is to let go of our belief in prescriptive grammar and embrace descriptive grammar. I tried is all I can say. I may have become more descriptive in my grammatical views but if you're gonna have the cheek to proudly display something in order to entice me into your place of business, at least let me know that you bothered to press F7! Nevertheless, it's a tiny habit of mine to document these moments of unintended humour on the mean streets of London lol. So expect more of these whenever I feel the urge....