After Surgery, Woman Wakes With Foreign Accent

Friday, 06 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Of all the things to worry about when undergoing surgery, developing a foreign accent isn’t high on the list. But that’s exactly what happened to an Oregon woman, says the LA Times, after she went to the dentist for an operation and woke up with an accent described as “an odd mixture of Irish, Scottish and northern British, with perhaps a dash of Australian and South African for good measure.” Doctors say the woman suffers from something called Foreign Accent Syndrome, a rare ailment that usually is triggered by a stroke. What sounds like a different accent is actually a difficulty pronouncing consonant clusters and elongating vowels.

Here’s a woman from Texas saying “stayed out all night” Here she is saying the same phrase after developing Foreign Accent Syndrome