The shop owner, in the village I moved to, has this awful accent. Something about baguettes and croissants. Indiciferable as a someone from the Netherlands.
We’re used to a lot of owners and managers of convenience stores (I think this includes corner stores?) and gas stations being naturalized citizens and foreign nationals. Idk how that got started or how widespread it is, how much of it is a true demographic vs confirmation bias of what we see portrayed in entertainment and media—but either way there is a clear concept of people in that line of work, true or not.
Of course I say this as an American assuming every random stranger on the internet I see commenting on a post I’m reading to be an American as well, so I’m not entirely sure if this idea holds up in other countries as well.
If it is true I’d be curious to know the reason why the demographic exists, specifically what it is that attracts non-native citizens
Do Americans say “corner shop”? Corner shops are usually UK thing because they are shops that are on the corners of residential streets, hence the name. When the houses were built it was thought that people would need access to convenient shops so they built the street with a shop on it.
Sure. In the bigger cities sometimes. More often we’ll say convenience stores, bodegas or just use the chain store name like 7-11. But corner store gets used often enough even if the stores aren’t actually on corners
Not sure about these days - other than 7-11 the typical “corner store” seems to be getting increasingly rare - but when I was younger most were generally run by people that I assume were immigrants due to having some accent or other.
Same here… But in my defense the guy that runs the corner store near me has one, and Apu from Simpsons comes to mind too (the two have completely different accect btw
I don’t know why, but when I read this in my head, he has an accent.
I imagine him Persian or Arab, because in my limited experience they have been the most charismatic shopkeepers.
It was the quick shift to “very handsome” without a pronoun modifier.
Linguistics ftw!
Everyone has an accent!
Yeah, are they just trying to say foreign?
Not necessarily. People who say “he has an accent” just think that their accent is “not an accent” so it could also be a (different) regional accent.
Having an accent is code for immigrant. If someone from alabama goes to new york, they are never described as “having an accent”.
The shop owner, in the village I moved to, has this awful accent. Something about baguettes and croissants. Indiciferable as a someone from the Netherlands.
We’re used to a lot of owners and managers of convenience stores (I think this includes corner stores?) and gas stations being naturalized citizens and foreign nationals. Idk how that got started or how widespread it is, how much of it is a true demographic vs confirmation bias of what we see portrayed in entertainment and media—but either way there is a clear concept of people in that line of work, true or not.
Of course I say this as an American assuming every random stranger on the internet I see commenting on a post I’m reading to be an American as well, so I’m not entirely sure if this idea holds up in other countries as well.
If it is true I’d be curious to know the reason why the demographic exists, specifically what it is that attracts non-native citizens
In my city, the overwhelming majority of convenience store owners are Chinese.
I should ask the ones near my house how they started.
Do Americans say “corner shop”? Corner shops are usually UK thing because they are shops that are on the corners of residential streets, hence the name. When the houses were built it was thought that people would need access to convenient shops so they built the street with a shop on it.
Sure. In the bigger cities sometimes. More often we’ll say convenience stores, bodegas or just use the chain store name like 7-11. But corner store gets used often enough even if the stores aren’t actually on corners
Haha same
An accent of ? Read it out loud to us
I didn’t say that. I take credit for shit, but I can’t steal from a shit bot
I made so fart jokes based on wtf
Not sure about these days - other than 7-11 the typical “corner store” seems to be getting increasingly rare - but when I was younger most were generally run by people that I assume were immigrants due to having some accent or other.
Same here… But in my defense the guy that runs the corner store near me has one, and Apu from Simpsons comes to mind too (the two have completely different accect btw