Say it Again: Matthew Marshall

Say it again

“Say it again,” said Kimberly, my cousin, excitedly.

“Cir,” I said. It was supposed to be car but I had an accent.

“Why do you say it like that,” Nick, my brother asked.

To me saying ‘cir’ was car. I was confused, “I don’t know it just sort of comes out that way.”

Later that day we went to my father.
“Dad listen to this, Matt say car,” Nick said.

“Cir.”

“Why do you sound like that,” asked my father.

“I don’t know it just sort of comes out like that.”

“Aunt Cynthia is a speech therapist. Do you want to go to her about it?”

“No, I’m sure it will just go away.” At this point I was getting upset. I didn’t want to be different, and I didn’t hear a difference. This all happened while we were camping. The next day at school more of my friends noticed my accent.

“That’s weird. Say Rochelle,” my friend Rochelle said.

“Rochelle.” I said it completely normally.

“Alright now say car again.”

“Cir.”

“Weird. Say Park.”

“Perk.”

“So you can’t say the letter r. You can make the sound that r makes, but you can’t say the letter.”

“Oh.”

This has happened countless times. I thought that the people who found it the weirdest would be my friends, however I was wrong. My third grade teacher, Ms. Westcott, was the worst about it. She devoted an entire hour making me say words that I couldn’t say. Even after that she couldn’t understand the words I was trying to say.

“Where are you from,” she asked the same day.

“Philly.”

“How about your parents?”

“Philly.”

“Then how do you have an accent?”

“I don’t know,” and the truth is I didn’t. I hadn’t figured it out.

My brother would have to convey information. He always understood it the best. The reason is that he was exposed to it the most. He was my best friend; we lived together, and had every class together. He also lacks the accent, which was more convenient for translating.

I tried again and again to get rid of my accent. To repeat the word car or park so I could be normal again. I wanted to sound like everybody else. Mike Rose writes, “Who wants to be normal,” in his book “I just wanna be average.” The answer was, me. I wanted to be like all of the other people in my class. Speak and act like them. However, after a few years, I realized my accent represented me. My brother and I are identical twins and people get us confused. Then I developed my accent. It became my identity, my difference from Nick. To tell us apart, people tell us to talk. I finally had my own thing. I was no longer one of the twins. I was the twin with the accent. I was the kid with the accent (although everybody still called me Matt). And I liked that.

I realized that not everybody is the same. Everybody had their own thing that set them apart from everybody else. Mine, of course, was my accent. There were smart kids and funny kids, but nobody had an accent like I did. I was special.

High school brought on a new experience. Nick wasn’t there to translate, even though my accent had lessened through the years. I was afraid I would have to write the words I was trying to say. But nobody noticed my accent. Most of my class understood my accent. It wasn’t until I pointed it out one day in history that people started to notice, or at least ask about it.

“Wait. Say park again.”

“Perk.”

“Where does you accent come from?”

“I’m not sure. It just kinda developed when I was in second grade.”

“Oh. Alright.”

And that was it. Nothing else except the occasional “say car again.” I was shocked. People picked up the words I was saying much faster than in elementary school. I felt like I lost what had set me apart. I knew I still had it though. I never noticed it though, until I had to make a video. I realized how weird I sounded.

It wasn’t until English class this year that I knew where my accent came from. We watched a video about language. The video told us that people from Boston were about to speak. My friend Victoria, who was sitting next to me, said, “Hey it’s your people.”

“No they aren’t I can say Merge,” this was soon after a man on the video said Merge (meaning Marge).

Victoria just laughed.

“Alright but I can say perk.”

That’s when I came to the realization that I had a Boston accent. It wasn’t until we wrote this paper that I realized how my accent has effect my life. It was my identity for a long time. My language never controlled me; I didn’t stop speaking because of it. I didn’t change because of it. I instead let it become me, let it set me apart.