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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Can Anyone Ever Really Lose Their Accent?

Some folks might be able to pull off a Scottish accent every now & then whenever they try to quote something from Braveheart. But is it possible for someone to ever truly lose his or her native accent & replace it with a new one?

Actually…no. The way you speak now will most likely going to be with you for the rest of your life.

Defined as “pronunciation conventions of a language shaped by factors such as region, culture, and class”, a person’s accent develops as early as 6 months old. When a baby is learning the words for cat and mama and play, they’re also learning how to pronounce the sounds in those words from the people around them. Newborn brains are wired to recognize & learn languages just from exposure to them, so that, by the time the babies start talking, they know the correct pronunciations to use for their native language.

As we age, our instinctive understanding of foreign accents & languages gets weaker. So, if you’re, say, an English speaker raised in Brooklyn, you might think the English that someone from Alabama speaks ultimately sounds “wrong”, though you might not be able to articulate precisely what it is that makes it sound wrong. And that’s why pulling off a convincing foreign accent can be so difficult, even if you’ve been exposed to it frequently & repeatedly before.

Around age 18, your ability to learn a second language takes a steep nosedive, and the same is mostly true for your ability to speak in a new accent. If you immerse yourself in a foreign environment for long enough, you may be able to pick up some bits & pieces of the local accent, but totally adopting a non-native accent without making a conscious effort to maintain it is unlikely as an adult.

The one exception to that rule, though, is Foreign Accent Syndrome. Following a head injury or stroke, some people have reported suddenly speaking in accents they didn’t grow up using. The syndrome is incredibly rare, with only 100 people around the world having been diagnosed with it, and medical experts aren’t sure why brain injuries cause it. But while patients may be pronouncing their words differently, they aren’t exactly using foreign accents in the way most people think of them; the culprit may be subtle changes to muscle movements in the jaw, tongue, lips, and larynx that change the way patients pronounce certain vowels.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Shoot me an email: [email protected]!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Berryville Graphics

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Don’t Rear Car Windows Roll Down All The Way?

You & I most likely don’t have the exact same automobile. In fact, pretty much everybody’s vehicle is different, with various options & features included (or not included). But one thing that pretty much anyone who has a 4-door passenger car has are rear windows that don’t roll all the way down. Why is that? Why don’t rear windows roll all the way down like the front windows do?

Since this is something pretty much every car deals with, you might’ve just assumed it was some kind of government-mandated safety feature, similar to airbags or seat belts. And that would make sense since, with the windows not rolling all the way down, kids would be less likely to squirm out of the car. It’s a feature that certainly would also complement your car doors’ child safety locks, which prevent anyone from opening the doors from the inside.

But this particular “safety feature” is actually just a convenient side effect of your rear windows’ limited clearance & mobility. The real reason almost all rear windows won’t roll down all the way is because there’s no place for the glass to go when the window rolls down. When you look at the side of a regular 4-door car, you’ll see that the front doors are rectangular, meaning the front windows have a broad flat expanse to slide down into. The back doors, on the other hand, are usually curved or slanted forward to provide clearance for the back wheels, and that shape obstructs the back windows path. So, the glass sheets could only slide down so far before they’d end up hitting the wheel wells.

Some car designs manage to avoid the issue by just splitting the rear windows into two panes: the front being larger & rolling all the way down, while the rear is smaller & doesn’t move at all. So, if you happen to have one of those cars to shuttle your kids around in, maybe be a bit more meticulous about activating those child safety locks. But if you’re like the majority of the rest of us, and your rear windows roll down just short of all the way, at least now you know why (and you don’t feel like you got shorted by the manufacturer or dealer).

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Shoot me an email at [email protected]!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Do People Kiss At Midnight on New Year’s Eve?

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, right on the cusp of New Year’s Day, maybe you were one of the millions of folks who partook in the tradition of kissing someone. Why do we do that? Why do we, traditionally, kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve?

It actually goes back, in part, to the hedonistic ancient Romans. During the Saturnalia winter festival, which was observed between December 17th & December 23rd and was intended to honor Saturn, the agricultural god, party-goers would get super intoxicated & incredibly handsy with each other (with plenty of kissing, as well).

But the Romans didn’t consider kissing to be a part of any genuine tradition. That actually is credited to the Vikings, who celebrated the winter festival of Hogmanay by kissing to wish each other a happy new year. They weren’t necessarily romantic exchanges, more like greetings to & from friends & family. That tradition subsequently made its way into the folklore of various other cultures & probably came to America with the arrival of German immigrants in the 19th century, as one early printed document from 1863 mentioned German revelers passing around “hearty kisses” at the stroke of midnight. Americans were quick to adopt it, and the kiss soon became as ubiquitous as toasting one another.

Another important reason for its popularity may have also been the advent of electricity, since gathering at midnight became way more practical with the advent of light bulbs which, in turn, led to more merriment being spread around in general. And it’s never too early to start planning your next New Year’s Eve shenanigans, so maybe start checking around now to see who’ll you’ll be with & asking if they can be sure to chew some gum in the lead-up to midnight.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio) or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Berryville Graphics

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