You speak English. Your mother and father both speak English, their parents spoke English, and maybe even their parents before them. You took a foreign language in high school, but only did well enough to pass, and you usually take offense and patriotic umbrage when you see signs written in different languages. (Se habla español?? Not in my neighborhood, Jack!)

So what's with your randomly trying to lay on a foreign accent when you say certain words?

This usually happens when you're ordering food. You'll go to a Mexican restaurant and butcher all the names on the menu; but then you decide you need more wraps for your fajitas, so you politely ask for more, "torrrr-TEE-jahs," making sure to really roll that 'R', and enunciate that 'jah' sound like they do on Telemundo.

Or you'll go into a deli to order a sandwich, and realize that a chicken parm sub just isn't the same without fresh "muttz," or as actual Italians pronounce it, "mozzarella."

Don't even get me started on your on-again-off-again desire to do justice to city names from around the world. You were just fine planning a trip to "PAIR-iss" last month. So now that you've worn out your Lonely Planet guide to France, suddenly you've become worldly and are looking forward to seeing the lights of "pair-EE?" Please.

If you want to learn a new language and pronounce it properly, be my guest. But don't pepper your usual English with faux foreign sounding words just to look cosmopolitan. It backfires and actually makes you look like a rube.

Your très gauche way of inserting a bogus foreign accent when it suits your purposes is why I don't want to hang out with you.

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