The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #65481   Message #3935456
Posted By: Jack Campin
05-Jul-18 - 09:59 AM
Thread Name: Worst singing accent.
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
"I DO NOT KNOW WHAT A HONKIE IS?
Really - you have lived a sheltered life !!
It's a black term for a white man


I used to work with a guy from Hong Kong who had ended up having three second languages - English, Mandarin and Cantonese - but didn't quite manage native speaker ability in any of them. I remarked that there was no elegant words for people from Hong Kong and suggested "honkies". When he asked what that meant I said "Black American English for white people", and if you've heard me speak you will realize that the end of the sentence would have gone through his ear a few milliseconds before the beginning had emerged from the language processing centre in the brain - he didn't have a prayer of getting it first time.