Word: accents
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Agatha Christie created Poirot in her first novel, the 1920 The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and he was in movies by 1931. This mustachioed dandy with a French accent as hokey as Inspector Clouseau's was a perfect fit for Peter Ustinov, who gave Poirot heft and a subversive slyness in three features (including this 1978 caper with Bette Davis and Maggie Smith) and then three spiffy TV films...
...week later, sitting bored at work in Vancouver, I tuned in on-line to Owain’s radio show and was overcome with shivers. Sure, his accent already makes my knees go weak, but this was something else. There he sat, thousands of miles away, laughing about celebrities, talking about the traffic, cracking average jokes–all in Welsh. Hearing Owain’s show drove home for me the power and permanence of the Welsh language...
...animal behavior at UCLA. While he hasn't addressed the question through formal research, Blumstein has seen hints of behavioral rules in songbirds. A given species tends to have similar songs but with local "dialects" that vary from one territory to another. If a bird sings with a nonlocal accent, he says, "everybody knows: 'Oh, my God, there's an invader.' Then they get upset and kick it out." The question, Blumstein says, is whether that's a sign of ethics or just instinct...
...like the people. The bus gives me a sense of camaraderie with my fellow commuters. Here we are, pre-morning caffeine, all trying to get to our jobs. As long as I don’t open my mouth and reveal my “amusing” American accent, I am tacitly accepted as a Sydneysider...
...with wispy facial hair that makes him look younger than his age, Marwan doesn't stand out in the streets of Iraq. Few would notice his one distinguishing feature: outsize hands, heavily callused from use of his favorite weapon, the Russian-made PKC machine gun. Even his distinctive Fallujah accent is not uncommon amid the din of the Iraqi capital, where suicide bombings are most frequent. According to an informant close to several insurgent groups and a U.S. official familiar with rebel operations, small and nondescript fighters like Marwan are considered ideal bombers, since they can slip into crowds without...