Ah that Irish accent!

Years ago my husband had a colleague who was Irish. Occasionally I'd find him on the end of the line when I answered the phone (no cell phones in those days!), and I'd do my best to keep him talking because that Irish lilt in his voice was music to my ears. There's a kind of liquidity to the consonants that is so appealing.

I know that accents vary greatly on this North American continent of ours, but I have to wonder if the general American accent derives quite largely from the Irish. Of course there are other factors at work, what I would call etheric geography, that influence the way we speak. I found it interesting that the New Zealanders flatten their 'e's in much the same way as South Africans.

But recently I've been wondering about why the Americans say 'ass' when referring to their rear end, rather than 'arse' as the English do. I saw both of these written recently and was reminded of my dad. 'Arse' was considered an impolite word when I was a child. He used to sing a silly song:

'Ask your mother for sixpence to see the tall giraffe
With a pimple on his nose and a pimple on his...

Ask your mother...' etc.

So I guess this splitting came about because Americans use the short 'a' rather than the longer 'ah'. My mother's Irish/Scottish roots had her saying 'dancing', whereas my dad used to take me to 'dahncing'.

Now, somewhat to my distress, our American/English language seems to be going in yet another direction. That is, people say 'ay' for the indefinite article. Like, "I'm now going to drink ay cup of coffee". I think that makes you sound like an ass. And this time I mean a donkey!!