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What are the giveaways that someone is faking a British accent?

Alternatively, what part of the UK breeds accents that sound fake to Americans? There's a barista in Santa Cruz who's notorious for his. how is it possible?

25 ANSWERS



Jeremy Miles, Moved from England to the United States.

Updated Apr 30 · Upvoted by Zach Davidson, Creative Mastermind/Idiot

You ask them something which only someone very familiar with British culture (usually a British person) would know. I've tried to order these in terms of how difficult it would be to engage a stranger.

A fiver is a five pound note in the UK, a tenner is a ten pound note. A British person would interpret these as a five dollar bill / ten dollar bill. If you asked if I had two fivers, I'd immediately understand that you wanted to know if I had two five dollar bills. Ask them if they have two fivers for your tenner.A "hole in the wall" in the UK is an ATM. It might also be called a cashpoint. "Oops, out of money. Need to visit the hole in the wall."There are brand names that are ubiquitous in the UK, but not so will known in the US. For example: "I was on my way to Tesco [grocery store] in my Vauxhall [car] to get some Anadin [painkillers] when the car broke down. I couldn't afford the bill so I phone Barclays [bank] to ask for more money."Throw in some (slightly offensive) slang words: call them a tosser, and see if they're insulted. Or a twat. Tell them that their accent is "completely pants" and see if they're flummoxed (pants means underwear, and is slang for bad or poor). Do Americans say "flummoxed"? If not, ask them if they're flummoxed.Try to talk about cricket. Almost every British male knows something about cricket - LBW means "leg before wicket", for example. You'd have to be good at faking to know that.Ask them about major sporting events that the UK was involved in. I wasn't born, but I know that 1966 means that England won the world cup against Germany. (The final word from the commentator was