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February 11, 2012

Krohn: Barbie-cuing up an Aussie accent could pay off

By Tim Krohn Free Press Staff Writer

I’d never heard of Curtis Stone before he started popping up in the Hy-Vee grocery store ads. The Australian celebrity chef strolls the Hy-Vee aisles, approaching women and leading them through an impromptu meal preparation.

The women seem delighted.

The Aussie-accented male appears to be popping up more and more on television. They’re pitching home improvement products and cleaning products, hosting gardening shows and starring in shows like “The Mentalist.”

Americans have long rated British accents as among the sexiest, so it’s not surprising that actors from the heavily British-influenced Australia are getting their turn.

The sexiest-sounding languages actually belong to the Italian and French. A new study by Stanford University said they are the languages that most stir amorous feelings in American men and women.

Only Stanford would have “sexual linguistics” experts. Without getting into all the details, the researchers hooked people up to some devices and played different languages and accents to test which made them the most aroused.

But it’s tough to do effective Hy-Vee ads in Italian or French, so getting weak-kneed over Australian accents will have to do.

I always thought I should learn a foreign language, but it’s hard. And which one to learn? My ancestral German sounds so harsh. And every time you hear it, you instinctively look around for a tank division.

So, rather than go all in on a new language, I think I’ll learn the Aussie accent.

But it will be tricky. Australians don’t seem to make any declarative statements. They tend to end sentences with an upward inflection that makes every statement sound like a question. They elongate their vowels and have all kinds of great slang, like billabong, give it a burl, spit the dummie, woop-woop, G’day and rack off.

I’m not sure if I can speak Aussie, but I can learn to write it if you all admire it so much. And I have to admit, it would make city council stories more interesting if you could translate the quotes to Australian for readers:

City Manager Pat Hentges urged the council to allow residents to use grills in the new Riverfront Park, despite skepticism by some council members and residents in attendance.    

“I’ arsk the council t’give it a burl so all the mates and sheilas can throw a shrimp on the barbie,” Hentges said. “OhKaay, some will whinge about it t’you, bahrt I think there’ll be no worries.”

Of course, if I become the Aussie reporter of southern Minnesota it’ll make it hard to go shopping with all those women swooning around me in the grocery aisles.



Tim Krohn is a Free Press staff writer. He can be contacted at 344-6383 or tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com.

 

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