Due to this troper's admittedly high voice, people think he's in sixth or seventh grade, especially when it's voice communication-only. This troper is sixteen.

This troper was accused of faking a british accent. To add some insight, I was born and raised in the city of Gaalkayco, Somalia, which is in frickin' eastern africa. How would anyone think I am even possibly british?

Africa used to be occupied by the british. Not too surprising when you think about it.

Really? All of Africa? For the record, Gaalkayco was in Italian Somaliland, not British.

Back on St. Patrick's Day, this Irish-American Troper who doesn't have the cool Irish accent (or even a {{Valley Girl}} accent for that matter from living all of her life in SoCal) pulled off a decent Irish accent. At least one person in my Geometry class said I wasn't Irish. And, a few weeks later, Libby}} the very annoying Libby who sits next to me in World History said I can't speak Spanish because I'm not Mexican. I've been taking Spanish for eight years, and I plan on taking it as my foreign language class in my final two years of high school since it's gotten kind of rusty.

Not to mention, a lot of people who aren't Mexican speak Spanish. For instance, Spaniards.

This happens to me every time I discuss sexuality with someone. I speak of what I know, or my personal experiences and they think I'm making it up. You know, for bragging. Bonus points if I get a reply from another editor complaining that something I stated is unrealistic... even if I didn't specify.

This troper is from Texas. When she was in DC once for a school trip, they ran into another school at the Smisthonian. The teachers were talking, so the students talked as well. When the other school (from Maine) learned we were from Texas, they asked why we didn't have accents, say y'all, or do any other stereotypical Texan thing. We aren't backwoods hicks, NASA thank you!

{{Sikon}}: I once posted a video on [=YouTube=] of myself speaking English with my natural Russian accent. Someone commented that it was fake.

Perhaps one of the life experiences that defined this troper the most was the "Great Jihad of Sophomore Year". It involved being made a heretic (before it became cool), chased up and down the hallways during passing periods, an army of freshmen in pursuit brandishing sporks and ''pink nickels'' as projectiles, and even after our family moved, it just so happened he managed to send an agent of his freshman army after me. The details of how all of this started? Even he never really found a ''good'' reason...

Wait, What the Hell happened? Could you please elabourate further? This troper doesn't get it..

I think it's an example of TeensAreMonsters or HumansAreBastards. Some people are simply not satisfied without some group to discriminate against, someone to put down, someone to ''hate''.

Double subverted with this troper. I am from eastern Kentucky, but have a western Kentuckian accent. People from the rural south and Appalachia believe I'm trying too hard to hide an Appalachian accent. People from more urban regions just think I'm trying to fake an Appalachian accent and doing a poor job of it.

I'm from Maryland and speak with a Mid-Atlantic dialect, which is admittedly a mish-mash of Appalachian, Standard, and a dash of Northeast. Whenever I travel outside the DelMarVa area, I'm accused of trying to hide every accent on the North American continent including Texan, Georgian, Wisconson, Boston, and even Candadian, eh.

I'm from Louisville and people have told me I have a terrible fake southern accent (though really i don't hear it).

{{Eyclonus}}: My accent is ''General Australian English'', spoken by the majority of the population in Australia and every American I meet says I'm faking it or asks if I'm British.is no "british accent" like americans think. You try saying "That's a british accent" and you will get thumped. Tourists always expect Australians to speak in that Steve Irwin ''Ocker'' and they get really disappointed when we don't. It is also annoying that second most common accent in Australia is ''Bogan'' which is either a series of screeches (for women) or grunts(for men). As an illustration on the usual level of education/IQ of the average Australian ''Bogan'', the above outcomes also applies to these people, who seem disappointed that A)I'm not English so they can't rant on and on about England being some stuck-up medieval Empire, or B)That Australians can retain citizenship for using a vocabulary. For those not aware of it ''Ocker'' is an accent usually heard inland, especially in the hotter areas, Steve Irwin and those atrocious ''Crocodile Dundee'' films being textbook examples of it.

Amazingly enough, it works both ways - a few girls in this troper's school had that 'ocker' accent, and were belittled and insulted by girls who accused them of faking it. When they explained that everyone talked that way in the Kimberleys, they were told that people speak ''normal'' English. By the end of the year everyone had accepted that they really did talk that way, but were still asked by new students why they 'talked like that'.

''This'' Troper speaks with a ''Cultivated'' Australian accent, despite being a working-class country girl. I got asked if I was English a ''lot'' as a teen.

This troper is an Australian who lives in Leeds, England, and often gets accused of faking an Australian accent, because He "Doesn't sound like they do on Neighbors/Home and Away".

This troper and her friend are always asked which part of America they come from. My family has been in Australia for more generations than I can count. My friend has British origins. We blame TV but really there's no good explanation.

Are you me? Mind you, I also get accused by Americans of being English. It's probably because the Australian accent I have is so minor compared to what they expect, and it's even minor by the standards of other Australians.

I'm ''actually American'', and I ''still'' get accused of faking a British accent. I'm from South Carolina. South. Carolina. I mean, sure, we have a different accent then everyone else, but ''still''...

Inverted in the case of this British troper; on holiday in America, he was believed to be Australian. And back home in Scotland, he often gets accused of having an American accent!

{{Jonn}} is Bahamian, and his mother is an ex-English teacher, which means he speaks with much less of an accent than most of his countrymen. He has been asked why he talks funny on more than one occasion. When his brother went off to college, he was told that ''his'' Bahamian accent, which is more or less identical to Jonn's, was fairly prominent. Incidentally, other students have reported that they've met fairly vocal opposition from Americans who refused to be swayed from their conviction that we Bahamians live in huts on the beach and eat coconuts, even by the intelligent, articulate Bahamian standing right in front of them. (Oddly enough, when I went to Uni in NE England, people could tell my accent wasn't ''quite'' American, though close enough for gov't work.)

This troper has the same problem, since he has never had any sort of accent and doesn't elaborate on where he's from unless asked. It helps that the bahamas just uses the english language(he also wonders where the hell the accent came from since every generation for a while's been speaking english as a first language). He once met a girl that said he couldn't be from the bahama's because he couldn't speak "bahamian"(which she claimed was a whole new language).

Unrelated but amusing enough to share: This troper apparently had the IdiotBall when she read that. "Where the hell is Bahamia? ...* facepalm* "

You're not alone. -{{tinlv7}}

You two are not alone. This Troper read this, had no clue for a few minutes, asked what it was in the IRC channel, and within a second of posting it, figured out - it's The Bahamas.

One thing this troper has learned from working in film is that directors and producers aren't the closest observers of reality in the first place, not even reality that they experience on a daily basis. For example, what really goes on in a restaurant; surely if you're having lunch meetings every workday and out to dinner almost every night, wouldn't you be familiar enough with what the staff and other diners do that it would strike you as odd if they behaved the way you insist they be depicted in front of your camera? Tony Scott yells, "Like a restaurant...on acid!" and conjures up extraneous and superficial 'restaurant-like' action that resembles nothing like anyone would do and still keep their job. And even if he knows better, the ViewersAreMorons notion is especially moronic, since someone who's buying the ticket to see the film sure has the disposable income to witness the inside of a restaurant every once in awhile! Fortunately good editing can cover up, or at least make mercifully brief, director stupidity.

This troper started playing a song, thinking my cousin might like it. He replied "What song is that and who's doing the bad Bob Dylan impression?" It should be obvious that the song was by the man himself. (Not Dark Yet, if you're interested.)

Somewhat similar to the above, when this troper first played "Anarchy In The UK" on Guitar Hero III, he thought "Man, this cover version is decent, but the vocalist is hamming it up way too much with his Johnny Rotten impression". Of course, this ''wasn't'' one of the cover tracks - The Sex Pistols had actually done a re-recorded version for the game.

This troper overheard a lady telling another lady that, as a person who taught CPR and other resuscitating techniques for a living, she specifically told all her classes that they shouldn't give CPR to people who acted a certain way because said people would turn around and sue the person who saved their lives. When she checked for confirmation, she found out it was a little-known but true fact.

What a catch-22. Save 'em and they sue you. Let 'em die and you're a pariah at best and sued by their next of kin at worst. Unless they've got a ZeroPercentApprovalRating.

Don't the have laws to prevent that?

Yes, but you still have to defend yourself in court, which is already significant time and expense.

Wow that sucks. You should move to New York. Everyone here has complete immunity to prosecution. This troper assumed (until now) that it was like that in all states but apparently NY is the only one.

Maryland has the exact same law, actually.

We have the Good Samaritan Law/Act for non-work related first-aiders up here in all of Canada, save for Quebec (silly Francophones). The exception is '''First Responders''', who are professionals who's job it is to give first aid treatment (think Ambulance Paramedics, Lifeguards, Nurses, contractual AND volunteer Firefighters ect). A ''First Responder'' can be held under legal prosecution if their actions are deemed 'dangerous' and 'a causing factor for further risk'.

What does "in a certain way" mean? People trying to kill themselves?

Not always. They could just be confused, unsure of who you are, and understandably reject your efforts to help. Sure, they may need help, but unless they verbally or physically accept your attempts to save them, you can be sued. However, once the person is unconscious, all codes of ethics are null you are free to help in the way you see fit.

Continuing with this first-aid theme, people from the States never believe me when I say that lifeguards in Canada earn $23 an hour (in B.C. anyway). This varies from province to province of course, but the base line is, all our guards earn the same. It's because we're part of a workers union and have to go through literally thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of training courses (that are higher in standard than the American standards) to be certified to even teach swimming lessons. The basic hiring requirements for most cities is B.C. are a total of six courses (that are around $300 each) and fifteen volunteer hours, and that's just to teach in a square 25 x 25 m pool. If you want to teach in an indoor pool with a slide, at the beach ect, you have to take supplementary courses. Doing the training doesn't guarantee you a job however, because for every twelve people that complete their courses, only two move on to work for a pool, beach or waterpark. Oh, did I mention, for three of the six basic courses and every supplementary course, you have to take a re-certification course every two years. Now that's a case of unrealistic hiring expectations if I've ever seen any. If you want further details, go to the Nation Lifesaving Society's website and see for yourself.

This Troper was reading her brother's university paper recently, and a piece of fiction in it used the cup size below hers as an example of the unrealistic letter a clueless young guy might come up with if a woman he was interested in forced him to guess hers. It might be the MostCommonSuperpower, but This Troper considers herself BlessedWithSuck.

Preach it, sister.

EddieCurrent recalls his brief time in Karate-- and how the best student demonstrated that no, her "super powers" did not prevent her from being scary as all hell. She was also a gymnast. No, guys, they don't get in the lady's face, it's called supportive clothing. Stop making asses out of you and me...

I was once at home when a couple of people firing automatic weapons at each other (no joke!) drove past my house. I thought someone had driven over one of the saplings along the street, because that's what it sounded like: sticks breaking.

While I was serving in Kabul, I realized that the best indication of an exploding car bomb was that the window pane in the office room rattled briefly.

This troper became a fan of LuckyStar because Konata and the girls remind her of herself and her friends at that age. Guess what the number one complaint she hears against the show is?

I'm British. I love tea. Some people seem to think that I'm just playing on a stereotype, but no. I really do love tea. It's like hot delicious in a cup.

Who doesn't love tea? Tea is awesome.

This ia unfortunately all too true. This troper actually got in a fight at school(The basted nicked my flask!) because some obnoxious fat american kid joked that i was just faking being british. I was born in england and have never left the country.

If you've never left, then does that mean this obnoxious american kid was ''in england'' at the time? Talk about playing on stereotypes.

When I was 10, on a rare snowy day, I was pulling a sled full of snow home. The sled got stuck and so I paused, and looked at a window of a nearby house. Why I looked at the window, I don't know, but I soon saw flames shoot up within it, and the glass broke. It looked just like CGI.

I once wrote a fantasy story about a warrior in training. At one point, in a sparring match, he used a triple-kick to knock his opponent down, a move that started with a kick to the lower leg, then continued with two more, each getting progressively higher on the target's body. I got a fair number of feedback comments on this one particular move, stating that it sounded like something out of a video game and didn't fit with the mostly-realistic tone of the rest of the story. Turns out that was the one thing in that whole scene I wasn't making up on the spot: a friend who's a fairly skilled practitioner of ''Tai chi ch'uan'' taught me how to do it.

This Troper grew up on Long Island, New York, and now lives in St. Louis. People here often express surprise that I "don't have a New York accent." Yes, I do. Most of the Long Island suburbs have an innocuous accent that's basically Standard Television American, the same as most Midwestern suburbs. (Fran Drescher is an anomaly whom we will never live down.)

Huh. This troper grew up in one of those Midwestern suburbs and everyone I meet thinks I'm from New York. Go figure.

You're kidding, right? It's not as clear anymore with TV and Movies, but certainly in this troper's parents generation midwesterners and a new yorkers of all sorts had clear accents. Not the ones you see on TV, but still quite clear.

Actually the current New York accent is very close to the generic nonregionally-specifc american accent. Enough so that accent tests tell this New York troper that she's from the midwest as much as they do the northeast (and even then not New York specifically).

Then there are the guys at my work who try and blame the accent of recent immigrants for not understanding them. It's like the lady in the weight loss club on LittleBritain-- They're loud and clear, but the co-workers here the slightest lilt, and go into "accents are thick" mode. No, just you, son. -- EddieCurrent.

My friend and I were driving down the road, and saw a column of smoke against a cloudy backdrop. I immediately remarked 'that CGI looks totally fake; couldn't they have spent a little money on this game engine?' It really did look that fake, so much so that you could have used that high-def cameras to capture it for any game and you would have been told that you didn't look anything at all like real life.

This troper's fiancee has often remarked that certain local sunsets look kind of fake, like they're matte paintings on a movie set...up until we both realized that, as we live in Southern California where all the set painters -live-, it's more a case of art imitating life.

I was designing an outfit for a character of mine, once, and briefly considered giving her a bulletproof outfit. Then I though, nah, that's just not believeable. Today I run across a fashion designer, Miguel Caballero, who designed a line of fashionable bulletproof wear. Here, http://www.miguelcaballero.com/cms/front_content.php

This Troper is working on a Sim City game mod that adds a variety of colorful buildings to the game, in which many exclaim "It's not realistic! Purple, Black, and Saturated Blue buildings don't exist!" I wonder what they would say about this house/restaurant, this San Fransisco apartment, and this apartment in Amsterdam... Yeah, we do really live in a colorful world folks.

Oddly enough, I've seen a purple house before as well, somewhere in Mississippi. Pretty sure one of my uncles was friends with the guy who lived there.

I've seen more than one house that was painted bright bubblegum pink. No, really.

The purple house linked above is located in Pleasant Valley, New York. This troper's best friend used to live there. However, that was before it was purple. He moved away, and now the "Purple House" restaurant does fairly poor business despite its exterior.

I live in Charleston, SC. We have a street nicknamed 'rainbow row' because all the houses are pink (salmon or baby), blue, green, yellow, orange- it's the ''white'' house that stands out. People down here definitely don't get looked at twice for painting their houses all colors of the rainbow.

There's a sky blue building in this tropers area of North Vancouver, it sticks out like a soar thumb.

This troper watched a few commercials about a delivery and shipping business where the visuals appeared to be made out of cardboard... and I couldn't tell if it was CGI or stop-motion. It'd be very good for the respective mediums either way!

On the "blown tire will always roll over" fallacy, This Troper had a tire blow out on him at 65 mph. Not only did the car not rollover, it took a full second for me to realize that the tire blew...about the time it took for the air to escape and for me to pull over to the side of the freeway.

My mum once had a rear tire blow out at high speed and managed to get the car safely to the side of the road. At that time she was far from a good driver and not even that experianced. If she could manage it, anyone can. I personally have had a tire blow out on a bus I was driving, during my training, although luckely it was on the rear so a double, and other than the loud bang I hardly noticed it.

There's one shot in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' - specifically, it's the one where Indy is finally getting out of the Ark's resting place by pushing the block out - that I always see and think "That looks CGI", even though I ''know'' CGI wasn't used in film at all until a few years later.

Watch the shadow of that block when its pushed out. It ''bounces''.

But, my point is, it doesn't look like a polystyrene or plastic boulder. It looks like CGI. So it's something fake that looks like something else that's fake as opposed to looking like something that's real.

Does anybody else who sees snow more than a few centimetres thick in a video think it has to be fake?

It depends where you live. We in Poland see half-a-meter thick snow once every year. Sometimes it's one meter thick.

This Troper recently had to explain to her roommate why you ''do not shock a flatline.'' Said roommate had assumed it was proper medical procedure because it's done so often in TV and movies, so when we actually saw it done ''correctly'', she had thought the writers suffered a CriticalResearchFailure.

Same story here. I also had to explain to my friend that you can't just use random electrical wires as a make-shift defribrillator.

This troper has a bizarre accent that has been described as British, Scottish, and '19th-century Bourgeoisie.' In reality, I'm Chinese and have lived most of my life in California and Texas. It's confusing even to me, because none of my friends or even family have my accent (we often joke, therefore, that I am adopted). As far as I can tell, my accent originates from when I was first being taught English, and I was just too stubborn to enunciate everything properly.

I've heard at least one person claim that large wounds, particularly from severed appendages, really do shoot jets of blood like fire hoses in real life, and that media that show blood moving normally are unrealistic. I suspect they've watched too many gory anime or slasher movies.

Not sure how far you're expecting the blood to shoot, but if you cut an artery, it can get quite... um... shooty.

having been on dialysis, this troper can tell you that it's like a water fountain, only red.

Yep, if you cut in the right place, blood will start gushing out. Happened to my uncle once when he cut open his thumb with a kitchen knife.

I'm still trying to explain to my friend that space doesn't work the way he thinks it does.

Same here. So far we've agreed that space is cold, but you will not freeze or even feel it for a long time, you will not blow up, though you will probably suffocate. I'm currently trying to get him to understand Dark Matter (he thinks it just means "we don't know what is here" when it actually means "there is definately something there due to the orbit of other planets and celestial bodies, but our current technology cannot pick anything up")

I admit it: I was shocked when I first heard that Transylvania is a real country. I always thought it was... you know... that fictional country Dracula lives in.

Transylvania isn't a country, it's in Romania. But it is a real place, and Count Dracula is based on a real person who lived there.

History geek here. Transylvania is a bit of disputed territory between Romania and Hungary - the Hungarians call it Erdely, their original homeland. At the moment they've stopped fighting over it and its Romanian - has been officially since the 1940s, I think. Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Tepes, or Vlad Dracula was a ruler in Wallachia, Romania in the 1400s. At that point the Ottoman empire had absorbed Hungary and was trying to absorb Romania, so Vlad massacred a lot of their army. He became famous for terror-tactics in how he executed them, and in having heads on pikes along major roads the Ottoman army would have to use.

Good ol' Dracula didn't put heads on spikes. Impaling involves stripping people naked, and pushing a large stake through the rectum then driving it through the rest of the body and out next to the neck, in a way that no important organs are harmed. People impaled like that are usually left sitting on the top of that thing for days before they die of infection.

And the thing is, to the people of romania, his methods were acceptable and made him a hero (he was protecting his country from invasions, after all), this troper's heard that some people around the area he lived get very annoyed with tourists who come just to "See where Dracula lived".

Recently my family got a new caravan (actually our first) and when we were in the shop at the place where we bought it I saw one of those safe can things that looks like a normal can but you put stuff like car keys and money in it and no one knows it's there. When my brother came over and saw it he said that the label on it didn't look very realistic. I then turned it over and saw on the back of the box a thing saying that all the labels used on the cans are genuine and taken right from the company that makes the label.

This here Dutch troper once connected a Ventrilo (no, not ours) and began chatting. After a while, somebody commented that my "German accent" was horribly fake. He followed up with "...or is it supposed to be British?". Facepalm.

This Troper is a born and raised caucasian Texan. On Ventrilio he was accused of lying about being from Texas because his accent was horrible. Then, performing an experiment on them, he started going through all of his collected accents. The others decided he was officially (dramatic pause) a black Italian... HeadDesk

This Troper often thinks, when looking at a lake or pond, that the water in Half Life 2 or {{Crysis}} looks better.

Who doesn't.

This Troper has a French Canadian friend. Their accent is entirely ridiculous, and yet, they've sworn up and down for the past two years that it's 100% genuine. It helps that I've never heard them talk any other way, and we speak over mic quite a bit.

ThisTroper, when looking out an airplane window at a totally white cloud that the airplane is inside, comments that someone forgot to render the background.

This troper is disturbed by shirtless guys because they have nipples. Wa-a-a-a-ay too much AnimeAnatomy in her childhood. She's straight, by the way.

That disturbs a lot of people in fact. To some, a male nipple is considered just as sexually suggestive as the female counterpart.

Paul the psychic octopus.

A few years ago, This Troper (a physics student), was working in the physics department as a coop student at a university. I was actually doing entirely computer based work, and only went in to the main laboratory for meetings and to take a look at the pretty equipment. One day, the local media came by to do a quick piece on the prestigious grant that the dept. head had recently been awarded. They interviewed me, but had me wear a lab coat, so I would look like an actual scientist. Problem the first: I don't do lab work, so I wouldn't be wearing a lab coat at all. In fact, I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Problem the second: In physics, we rarely if ever use lab coats.

This troper moved all over the USA and Europe during her childhood. I've lived in the US (South Carolina, Wyoming, California, Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota), Finland, Spain, France, and Estonia. In my fifteen years, I've been asked if I'm English, Australian, Russian, from Kentucky, or Canadian. Her answer- 'I'm actually mostly from South Carolina...' tends to get a few disbelieving responses.

This tropers father whose now approaching 60 in 2012, was an army brat born in Burnaby a subsector or some such of metrovancouver back in 52, he spent his younger years moving all over the place but retained no outstanding accent that seems to contrast him with others...but tell that to kids he met years ago while on a family vacation in the states who asked why he wasn't speaking Canadian, instead of American with a texan accent. As an aside, this troper, born and raised in British columbia and has never been to San Francisco, was informed by his american boyfriend that one of our raid guildies, is fond of this tropers San Fancisco accent.

I was a bit baffled and confused the first time I learned that it's possible to die from bee stings.

As someone who's extremely allergic to a single bee sting, it's possible from one sting. Though if someone isn't allergic it takes over 50 beestings' worth of venom IIRC.

When watching TheWildThornberrysMovie, my dad said "That song sounds like someone trying to ripoff Paul Simon". It was actually sung by Paul Simon.

This troper has come to the conclusion that he is immune to accents. I'm from Eastern Kentucky, which has a very distinctive accent, but... I never picked it up. At all. I've lived here all my life, but nobody believes that. Or, if they do, they think I try to hide it.

This troper has been reading about the Judge Rotenberg Center and other gulag schools for years now, and still finds part of her brain unable to accept at times that the kinds of things done in these places happen in reality and not in some science fiction dystopia.

This troper often argues with other {{Gorillaz}} fans about their singer's accent, saying that yes, it is possible to sing like Damon Albarn and speak like a MontyPython character. I know this because I took choir in middle school and if a gaggle of teenage bumpkins can sing "Ihr Kinderlein Kommet" with any dignity whatsoever, then it's no surprise 2D can pull off his cool, drowsy style despite talking with that shrill Cockney droll.

This troper's a born and raised Tennessean, everyone in his family actually does have a stereotypical country accent, but when people ask me why I sound different, I respond "I don't like the accent, so I trained myself to speak a more pleasing one (I'm horribly shallow)". Most people tend to call bullshit on that, saying you can't lose your accent once you're born with it, it took me three years of listening to people of the chosen accent on the internet, but it stuck on its own eventually.

This troper can't help on occassion but look at the sky, when there's lots of large billowing and whispy clouds, and have to remind himself that they are not painted. Seriously.

Due to my voice, people often ask me where I was born. I was born in America, not [insert grandparent's birth country here]. Blame both my genes and my speech disorder for the "accent".

That statistic that says that most photocopier faults are caused by people trying to copy their asses? Untrue. Most faults are the result of fair wear and tear on components.

This troper was born and raised in New York City around a lot of people who were from Brooklyn. The accent did not catch and this troper somehow ended up with an Iowa accent (minus the flattening of the au/aw diphthong-"dawn" does not sound like "don" when I say them). When she moved down south, people wondered why she did not sound like Joey Wheeler and why she was so laid back.

In high school, this troper was very surprised to learn in math class that no one knows ladybugs eats other insects (namely aphids), because popular media or childrens' books always shows them munching on leaves just like grasshoppers. They found it hard to accept when I told them.