Because the LL.M. degree means so little in America, there are very few American students on the program here. Out of the ~125 students getting the LL.M. degree here, there are only six Americans -- and four of us are on the HLS study abroad program (the other two want to go into academia and are using this as a stepping stone). The vast majority of "American" accents we hear are Canadian, and they entirely outnumber us. So do the Irish. And the Australians. And the Germans.
Meanwhile, though, American law is very important, and because there is such a heavy focus on comparative law in the LL.M. classes, we often end up hearing overviews of U.S. law. Which are often highly over-simplified, and sometimes a bit incorrect. Or, worse, we are called on to explain the U.S. law ourselves. Luckily, in all my classes I've got at least one other American with me, so we look at each other and then usually just go with "it varies from state to state."
But we do feel very conspicuous.
6 comments:
I hope you aren't leaving your colleagues with the mistaken impression that your conspicuous American accents are the same as Canadian accents. Remember the War of 1812? We kicked your ass, so we've totally earned the right to append "eh" after every sentence.
Haha, I figure out which ones the Canadians are when the eventually have to make an "or" sound like in "sorry" or "tomorrow."
Wait, what? I didn't even know I said "or" funny! When I say it, "sorry" rhymes with "lorry" and not...wait, what would it rhyme with?
There are the English Canucks. And the French Canadians. And then there are the Eugeniens. With their revisionist history. Plus who exactly was "we" in 1812-1815? I think "we" were still pretty much Union Jack waving subjects of King so-and-so.
Hey, us "English Canucks" are typically called "anglophones," or "anglos." And I'm not a revisionist. The War of 1812 was last year, I swear!
Yeah, that's the problem ... you rhyme sorry with lorry. No. In American, it's supposed to sound more like "saw-ree."
Oh, and Americans don't say "lorry" at all.
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