"Ah'm frum Jawjuh."
"That was better, Mr. Bond."
James Bond, an agent on Her Majesty's Secret Service, was getting a crash course in speaking with a Georgia accent. His teacher was a middle-aged lady named Charlotte.
"Remember that when making a conversational statement, to lift your voice at the end of the sentence, as if asking a question."
"Ah'm frum Jawjuh?" Bond responded at once, slurring the words slightly as Charlotte had instructed, and making the lift of his voice at the end of the statement soft and natural. Bond was rewarded with a glowing smile from Charlotte that had told him he'd said it very well indeed.
Charlotte was a few years older than Bond. Bond thought Charlotte was quite beautiful, not in the sense of being nice to look at, but in the sense of being very nice to listen to.
When Charlotte introduced herself to him, Bond was immediately impressed with the stunning gorgeousness of her voice. Accents were Charlotte's specialty. She gave Bond a 60-second demonstration of her talents, reciting a poem in more than a dozen perfect accents from around the world.
Bond was amazed by her talent, and dazzled by her charm and her wit.
Her job was to train Bond to speak like a man from Atlanta, Georgia.
She had less than an hour to train him.
Charlotte began by asking Bond to speak with a Southern accent. Bond did so, deciding to quote the words from a sign posted outside the room: "Authorized persons only beyond this point." He thought he had spoken well, and that his accent was more than passable.
Charlotte felt otherwise. "You need to speak like someone from Georgia, Mr. Bond, not someone from Texas."
Bond was astonished; he had based his Southern accent upon the manner of speech he had heard from President Lyndon Johnson, a Texan. Charlotte was so skilled that she had picked up the regional accent he had mimicked.
People from Georgia, Charlotte explained, speak somewhat less distinctly than people from Texas, and tend to run their words together. And they seem to ask a lot of questions, even if they are only making statements.
Charlotte took Bond through a couple of dozen additional phrases that he might need. Most of Bond's attempts were fairly good, with Charlotte offering only a few modest corrections.
The hour was up before he knew it.
"Please be frank with me, Charlotte," Bond politely pleaded in his natural voice, as Charlotte gathered her things. "How did I do?"
Charlotte smiled. "You have quick ear, Mr. Bond, and you are a fast learner. With time and practice, I'm certain you could be quite proficient." Before Bond could feel too pleased with himself, Charlotte added with a smile, "Nevertheless, the less you say, the better."
Bond nodded, appreciating Charlotte's frankness. He was curious about something, though. "You are a very good teacher. Can you tell me, how it came to be that an accomplished speaker of different accents came to work for the American FBI?"
Charlotte giggled. "I used to be a stage actress and a movie consultant. The FBI pays better."