Strange habits

I was thinking about this the other day:

I noticed something about PJ a few years into our marriage. When he talks to someone who has a foreign accent, he starts to speak with their accent also. I'm not kidding, it's true! I've seen him do it with people he worked with from India. I've heard him with our hispanic neighbor. It's totally unconscious, because when I mentioned it to him, he was surprised. He may be more aware of it now, since I said something. And, when he has been with any "country boys" (at work or elsewhere) he sounds as "Okie" as the rest of them (this accent comes quite naturally, I'm afraid).

I don't know why he does it, and I'm sure he's had some strange looks from people when he starts talking like them. He is not purposely mocking. I think it has something to with the fact that he is such a good listener and conversationalist---he just joins in with the person he is talking to. I wonder if he would be good at picking up other languages in another country.

I was thinking about this and the humorous side of it, and realized I do something similar and just as funny. If I have just put down a book to talk to PJ, he can tell sometimes what genre of book I've been reading. If I have been reading a Western (I inherited this taste from my dad), I talk like a cowboy, dropping my g's and everything. (e.g., "I been thinkin' 'bout somethin'") And if I've been reading an English regency era book (one of my fav genres), I use expressions and words from my book. So, I talk like the characters in the book I'm reading. (Some books lend themselves more easily to this than others.)

So, I guess we all have funny quirks. And you just learned some new ones about us!