Woman Wakes Up At Dentist Office With British Accent
True or not, you’ve likely heard a joke about British people having bad teeth. Maybe you heard it while watching an Austin Powers movie. However you associated the two, I’m sure there are a number of Brits who would take umbrage with the connotation that if you’re English, you’re going to have bad teeth.
To be sure, nobody in their wildest imaginings would believe that if you suffer from bad teeth, you might wind up sounding British... At least until now.
Meet Karen Butler, 56, a tax consultant from Toledo, Oregon. In Nov 2009, Butler had her teeth removed due to suffering from a case of severe Gingivitis. After the major extraction, Butler was fitted for dentures, and expected to soon thereafter resume a relatively normal life.
A normal life was exactly what Butler did not resume. Along with the dental procedure came something altogether unexpected into Karen Butler’s life — a very Irish-sounding brogue.
Watch a YouTube interview of Karen Butler, courtesy of the Oregonian.
Butler, who was born in Illinois and moved to Oregon when she was only one year old, has always spoken American English, without the very proper sounding British accent. No hint of Irish Cockney, either. She has never visited the United Kingdom.
According to Dr. Ted Lowendopf of the Providence Stroke Center in Oregon, interviewed on the Today Show, the condition is known as “Foreign Accent Syndrome,” and has only affected a hundred known people. NBC’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman stated that this mental condition just might clear itself up over time.
Butler is enjoying the change. “There’s nothing wrong with having an accent,” she said during the Today interview. “It’s just like a new toy.” Some of her older clients who have called since the condition were thrown off by the new accent, and new clients cannot believe she got her accent from a local dental office.
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