Thursday, October 30, 2008

Foreign accent syndrome?

CindyLou Romberg suffers from "foreign accent syndrome" where she speaks with German or Russian accents which she can't control. This is supposed to be a very rare disease with only 50 confirmed cases around the world.
(Featured in Ep. 10 of Mystery ER on Discovery Health, and you check the googly).


Really? Have you been to any showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Everyone leaves the theater going, "Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!" And "Huuuge tracts of land." And "What? A swallow carrying a coconut?"

Foreign accent syndrome? I suffer from that every time I go with my friends to Epcot and drink three pints of Guinness at the Rose and Crown. We've been asked by the bartenders to leave because of our Billy Connolly impersonations!

And I can't go to a new bar or club without repeating a quoted German tourist in a Miami newspaper from many years ago: Zhey zay zhere iz a zene here. Zhere iz no zene here.

And now that you've read this, I bet you're even thinking in a foreign accent. Rare disease my ass; we all suffer from it. Count the number of times you hear the "parrot sketch" the next time to attend a library convention.