I'm in New Zealand at the moment. I've had a rather good facility for various accents for as long as I can remember. Well, born in Oz, raised in NZ, lived in Brunei & the U.S., traveled to the U.K. - I've had a rather good dose of English in all it's various accents & disguises. Which makes the following all the more disturbing.
I answered the phone the other day at my brothers house, and the conversation went something like this:
"Good afternoon" - me
"Hi, is J there?" - dude on the other line
"No, I'm sorry he's not. Would you like to leave a message?" - me
"Sure - tell him that Noel from La *@##$$#Hc called. His loats are ready to be picked up." - dude that just id'd himself as Noel. (I was unable to catch the company he worked for...)
"Loats?" - me
"Yeah, loats. There's one box of loats, and they're ready to be picked up." Noel
"A box, of 'loats' are ready to be picked up." - (very uncertain) me
"Yeah, his loats, that's right. Cheers mate." - Noel
I'd repeated the mysterious word as I had heard it to him and after I got off the phone, "loats, loats, loats...." and I still had NO idea what loats were. Now, J, my brother is building some houses. This means it's quite possible that this is some new building thing I hadn't heard of before.
J came home & I gave him the message. Unfortunately J didn't know any Noel, and had never heard of loats either. As I hadn't gotten a number or the name of the business he was a little stumped.
Over the next hour or so he figured it out.
It was Noah, from Wellington Light & Electric who'd called, and his lights were ready to be picked up.
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