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“You speak very good English” …
October 2, 2008 |
This is #2 of our Sophisticated Insults Series for NaBloWriMo.
At stores, banks, on the street, especially in small towns, people ask us, “Where are you from?”.
When we say “India”, they often respond with
“You speak very good English.”
Some of them are just curious and trying to make conversation. Others are downright condescending and may even add: “You don’t have THAT accent.”
When J lived in a small town in New York state, he had some European colleagues come over, who were not very fluent in English. Every single time they went out for lunch, the waiter would turn to one of the Europeans to talk about the order. They, in turn, would look at J to communicate with the waiter and restaurant staff.
The waiter would seem surprised. He/she was likely to say, “You speak very good English.”
J would respond:
“Thanks. So do you.”
insults, MUSINGS, NaBloWriMo, Sophisticated Insults Series
just found you through a google search and am loving your blog. This post in particular - I’m Australian and went on exchange to the USA and spent a lot of time saying a bewildered “thank you…” to people who told me how great my english was…
not so much racial profiling in my case, rather utter stupidity