Vot Ocksent?

A character with a thick accent, when misunderstood by someone else with a different accent, may either deny that they're speaking in an accent or be totally oblivious to it. This can lead to huge and humorous misunderstandings.

This is, approximately, Truth in Television — everyone has an accent, but many people don't think of their own accent as one, since it's what they're used to.

Compare What the Hell Is That Accent? and Unexplained Accent. See also Unintelligible Accent.

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Examples

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe. Arpine Lusene, a ridiculously skilled Gentleman Thief from France who appears in some of Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck comics. When he writes letters in English, he does it in a French accent, but seems completely unaware of that.
  Lusene: Ze Mooney bean!
  Reporter: Mooney bean? What's that?
  Lusene: Not "Mooney bean", you dope! 'Mooney bean!'
• A version where it's not even their accent: In Young Justice, when Impulse passes on a message from the very Brooklynite Doiby Dickles, he does a Brief Accent Imitation, but when Robin calls him on it, Bart's response is a seemingly genuine "He's talkin' wit' an aksent?"
• Spider-Man: One issue (set prior to Spider-Man publically revealing his secret identity in Civil War) had a reporter guess that the Webslinger was a New York native. Spider-Man asks how he could possibly think that, to which the reporter says "ask me again in that Brooklyn accent how I know you're from New York."

Films — Animated

• Gussie Mausheimer from An American Tail has Elmuh Fudd Syndwome, and pronounces the word "rally" as "wowie". After Honest John asks what a "wowie" is and she explains it to him, he figures out that she meant "rally". She replies irritably "Zats vhat I said! A wowie!"

Films — Live-Action

• Last Action Hero has a boy entering an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Trying to convince him that this world is actually a work of fiction, Danny points out that Arnie's character, Jack Slater, has a thick Austrian accent that's quite weird for a native Angeleno. Slater replies "Egghcent? Vaht egghcent?"
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again. Inspector Clouseau (who has a thick French accent) is in Bavaria and goes to a hotel.
  Clouseau: Tell me, do you have a room?
  Desk Clerk: I do not know what a "reum" is.
  Clouseau: [looks up "room" in his phrase book] Zimmer (German for "room").
  Desk Clerk: Ah! A room!
  Clouseau: That is what I have been saying, you idiot.
• In My Cousin Vinny, Vinny mentions to the court that these "two yoots", beginning a round of where the judge finally gets him to say, "youths".
• In one scene in Bloodbath At The House Of Death, Dr Lukas Mandeville, who normally speaks English without any foreign accent, lapses into a strong German accent. When another character points this out, he replies "I am not speaking in zis German accent!"
• Young Frankenstein. Inspector Kemp tries to cool down a a group of villagers that want to go after Frederick Frankenstein.
  Kemp: I think before we go around killing people, we had better make damn sure of our evidence. Und we had better confirm the fact that young Frankenstein is indeed vollowing in his grandfather's vootstaps.
  Villagers: What?
  Kemp: Vollowing in his grandfather's vootstaps. Vootstaps! Vootstaps! [stamps feet]
  Villagers: Oh, footsteps.
• Ghostbusters II
  Venkman: Just where are you from, anyway?
  Janosz: De upper vest side?
• In The Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn takes an interest in Javelin due to his German accent. When he says that lots of American women he's met have expressed fondness for his accent, Harley responds that it's because Americans have no accents of their own... yet she's clearly speaking in her signature City Girl Squawk.
• In Universal Soldier during a quieter moment Veronica tries asking Luc (played by the very Belgian Jean-Claude Van Damme) is from because of his accent.
  Veronica: I figured you had to be French or something because of your accent.
  Luc: What accent?

Live-Action TV

• Austin & Ally: Two of the shop owners at the mall are a pirate-themed fried fish store owner and a Surfer Dude who owns a surf shop, respectively speaking like an old-fashioned pirate and a radical beach goer. In one episode, when they're both told they can go Out of Character for a mall meeting and don't have to speak in their fake accents, both of them asks the questioner what accent they're talking about.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus
  • Episode 34 ("Cycling Tour). Mr. Pither goes to the British Consulate in Smolensk and finds that the British Consul is a Chinese man with a strong accent.
  "British Consul": We Blitish here in Smolensk velly intellested in clicket.
  Mr. Pither: Oh, cricket?
  "British Consul": No, no...you not speak English velly well. Not clicket - clicket...clicketty click...clicket.
  • In one episode, we see a BBC presentation of "Erizabeth L," which is done by an Asian director.
• Get Smart
  • Max's archenemy the Claw, who pronounces it "craw."
  Smart: Well, if it isn't my old enemy the Craw.
  Claw: Not Craw! Craw!
  • One episode had a CONTROL agent be revealed to be a CHAOS agent, after which, he started speaking with an accent. When Max mentioned it, he insisted he was speaking normally and had been speaking with an accent while undercover.
• On an episode of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Carlos Mencia told a story of how his brother couldn't understand people with a Canadian accent, and said "I can't unersand zees people's assent, they need to learn to speak Enlish" [sic] in a heavy Mexican accent.
• Stephen Fry brings up two examples during a discussion about Scottish accents in an episode of QI. The first is a story about Dame Maggie Smith, who contacted a woman from Morningside hoping to study her accent in preparation for starring in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, only to offend the woman because she was convinced she didn't have any kind of accent. The second was a Scot who believed his own accent was indistinguishable from an English one, but who sounded "more Scottish than a Glaswegian drunk in a Soho doorway."
• A meta-example comes from Babylon 5: When confronted by J. Michael Straczynski about the vaguely East-European accent he gave his character Londo Mollari, Peter Jurasik would just shrug, say "What accent?" and keep going.

Web Animation

• Hayk Manukyan
  • In an episode of his Harut series, the Armenian-accented Harut pulls up to a drive-through window and asks for a number twelve, pronouncing it "twerve". This leads to a huge misunderstanding, with Harut screaming "Vhy you no understand?!"
  • In his vlog, Hayk tells a (probably fake) story about how he got in trouble while returning a VCR to a store because the way he said "as a matter of fact" came out sounding like "as motter focked", and couldn't understand why everyone got so upset. When the problem is traced to his accent, he replies "Vot ocksent?"

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick. Roy proofreads Durkon's letter to a high priest, written in the dwarfish Scottish-esque accent. When told he doesn't need to transcribe it, Durkon just asks "my what now?"
• Supernormal Step has May Dolingan, a sort-of Irish vampire whose accent is so pronounced that even her own family thinks its overdone

Western Animation

• The King of the Hill episode "A Fire-Fighting We Will Go" has Hank and his friends giving their individual retelling of an incident. When it's Boomhauer's turn, the flashback has the other men speaking with Boomhauer's repetitive rapid-fire pattern while Boomhauer himself speaks in a slow, deliberate drawl. This implies that Boomhauer thinks his speech patterns are normal and common.
• On an episode of DuckTales (1987), Magica Despell used magic to disguise herself, but her odd accent gave her away. She even said "Vot Ocksent?" when questioned about it.
• Phineas and Ferb
  • In "Finding Mary MacGuffin", they are at a lab coat store looking for a man with a German accent who frequents garage sales. It Makes Sense in Context. They start interviewing people in the store, and a man with a very obvious southern accent remarks, "As you can see, I don't have an accent."
  • Also happens in the Mission Marvel special, between Red Skull and, of all people, Dr. Doofenshmirtz:
  Doofenshmirtz: Did you just say, "'Swart' our plan"?
  Red Skull: No. Swart! Sw- Vit a T-H! Swart!
  Doofenshmirtz: Oh, "thwart"! Yeah, it makes more sense. I think that maybe you should go see a speech pathologist or a-a-a dialect coach or someth—
• A Running Gag on The Weekenders was Trish's mom saying something incomprehensible ("Kissing My Cup"), Trish translating it for her friends ("Kiss and make up") and Trish's mom replying "Is what I say!"
• Inverted when SpongeBob SquarePants visits Rock Bottom, a town on the bottom of a trench where the locals speak in raspberries. When he goes to an information booth, the attendant tells him "I can't pthbt! understand pthbt! your accent pthbt!" So SpongeBob has to add raspberries to his speech to be understood.
• In the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) episode "Hooked on Sonics", Antoine has to explain to Rotor what he means when he keeps calling Sonic a "Fuel". When Rotor figures out that Antoine means "Fool", Antoine replies "Zats what I said, a fuel!"
• Family Guy: In "One If By Clam, Two If By Sea", Stewie tries to give speech therapy to Eliza, who has a thick Cockney accent, and gives her the practice phrase "The life of the wife is ended by the knife".
  Stewie: No, no, no. Not "loif"! Life Life!
  Eliza: Tha's wha' ah said. Loif!

Real Life

• The "fis phenomenon": a toddler who says "fis" for "fish" will nonetheless expect adults to say "fish"; the child can hear the difference even if the ability to produce the sounds correctly is in the future.
• Done subtly in most cases. There is no objective way to speak and everyone learns their language from the people they know. This means that most if not everyone has an accent, even in their native language, that will be imperceptible to them in spite of how obvious it would be to strangers. This is where subtle regional accents become apparent. Most places have an accent that is considered the "default" just by how common/known it is^note Like the General Australian accent is this for Australians, the Standard Midwestern "Flat" for Americans, and Received Pronunciation is often seen as this for British people even though in life it really isn't and is usually called the "[insert demonym] accent" with the regional accents addressed as such. Very few if not almost nobody truly speaks in one of these "default" accents and will have subtle hints of others in their voices, even if they don't realize it.
• When The Sherman Brothers were looking to tap Maurice Chevalier to sing the title song for The Aristocats, they sent him a test recording in which Richard Sherman imitated Chevalier's trademark French accent. When the two met after Chevalier accepted the offer, Sherman told him that he hoped he didn't mind the accent, to which he responded "Accent? I didn't hear no accent!".
• Vincent Price, whose accent moved along a sliding scale of British to American depending on what film he was in, while in real life being a unique (and much-parodied) blend (a mix of Missouri, Yale, and a bit of English RP from having started his acting career there), thought he didn't have an accent, claimed to "speak like anyone else in America", and didn't know why people kept thinking he was English.

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