Imitating Someone - Consciously Or Not ?

A part time employee visited my job Friday.
We hadn't seen him for a couple months ( due to illness ).
Within 3 minutes talking with him ---
I found myself laughing EXACTLY like him !
He has the deep, staccato laugh.........I heard myself doing the same !
It didn't take me long ?...........a great laugh.
I had to shut up.
*
On the flip side --
I work in a public building........and we have a large "cast of characters" that frequent the building.
One guy has very slow stroll - up the entrance walkway.
It's as if his feet have "cement shoes" on them.
One day -
I got caught behind him - trying to walk in the building.
It was taking forever........so.......
I just started imitating his walk - right behind him.....( Yes !.....I'm a baaaad boy ! )
I slowly picked up my right cement foot....bam !....plodded it on the ground.......leaned to my left ...
picked up my left cement shoe.......bam!.......plodded it into the ground........on + on .
A bit like Frankenstein..........right behind Frankenstein.........(I know = Frunkenschteen)
Anyhow -
another employee saw me and was dyin' laughing.
I couldn't help myself - I wanted to stay happy, rather than annoyed.
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My wife works 12 hour shifts with only one other nurse in their room
I can always tell which nurse she works with by her language expressions and/or
her speech accent,
One nurse is from Ireland -- another has a Bronx ( NY ) accent -
my wife comes home sounding like either one of them !
*
My ( late ) Aunt Flo -
had a unique, infectious laugh.
Imagine the sound of a baseball card stuck in a bicycle wheel ?
A quick "flipping" sound,
Us kids. would always imitate it, later.
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How 'bout you ?

 

We had a milk inspector who would visit the farm every year, rating our farm on cleanliness, etc. so we could maintain our "Grade A" rating.

My siblings and I did a spot-on impression of him (voice, posture, stride, gestures...the whole deal) that would get our dad ROFL.

We'd even trail the inspector on the day he was there, following a few yards behind mimicking his every move.
Dad would have to try his best to not burst out in laughter!

We always kept that Grade A rating, but the best memories came from the good times working and laughing with our dad on the farm!
We didn't have much growing up on the farm, but memories like that are priceless!

RICHARD

 

So, young man, at what point did you and your father go from this:

To this????

Hmmmm???

 

That's unclear, Geogran, but I firmly remember back in the 80's he showed me an egg, saying "This is your brain."
Then he cracked open the egg, putting it into the frying pan. "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"

I looked him in the eye and said, "Yes. Didn't you hear Mom? She said whoever uses the last of the eggs is in trouble!"

RICHARD

 

20 years ago I worked for a Canadian company. They employed Canadians, brits, aussies and people from other countries. After about a year my friends noticed that I started speaking like a brit since the people I worked with were from GB. I never realized it until later when I caught myself one day.

 

I have done this when visiting Tennessee.
After a few days I developed an involuntary twang.

 

I left the rural route in summer of '78. Never went back for more than a day-or-so visit, on an annual (if that) basis.
Decades later, the wife informs me that whenever I'm on the phone with my dirt-road relations, all of a sudden my voice and vocabulary lapse into an "Opie and Andy down by the duck pond" rendition of speech, which disappears minutes after I hang up. I then noticed that, when I did visit, this same speech pattern would emerge. Once we're on the road back to the peninsula, it disappears. And it's not a conscious effort.

Last year, I went to visit an old Army buddy. Hadn't seen him in thirty-odd years. We were best of buds in Korea. He, from Steubenville, Ohio, has since married a gal
from just south of Nashville. Shortly after my arrival I said "Bob, there's no easy way to phrase this. You've surrendered your accent free mid-western voice for something down south." He had in fact developed a southern accent. I s'pose living in Nashville could cause that. But Bob didn't get married until he was in his early thirties and then moved to Tennessee, so over half his life was spent speaking Steubenvillese.

 

My g/f, who is also a nurse, got a habit of saying "y'all" after working in Atlanta for awhile. The people I worked with were from all over the country, so I didn't pick it up.